ghosts

Rosehill was shady and beautiful, the most serene place I could imagine. It had been closed to the public for years, and sometimes as I wandered alone - and often lonely - through the lush fern beds and long curtains of silvery moss, I pretended the crumbling angels were wood nymphs and fairies and I their ruler, queen of my own graveyard kingdom.

It is good for a man to invite his ghosts into his warm interior, out of the wild night, into the firelight, out of the howling dark.

Did you know sometimes it frightens me--when you say my name and I can't see you?will you ever learn to materialize before you speak?impetuous boy, if that's what you really are.how many centuries since you've climbed a balconyor do you do this every night with someone else?you tell me that you'll never leaveand I am almost afraid to believe it.why is it me you've chosen to follow?did you like the way I look when I am sleeping?was my hair more fun to tangle?are my dreams more entertaining?do you laugh when I'm complaining that I'm all alone?where were you when I searched the seafor a friend to talk to me?in a year where will you be?is it enough for you to steal into my mindfilling up my page with music written in my handyou know I'll take the credit for I must have made you come to me somehow.but please try to close the curtains when you leave at night,or I'll have to find someone to stay and warm me.will you always attend my midnight tea parties--as long as I set it at your place?if one day your sugar sits untouchedwill you have gone forever?would you miss me in a thousand years--when you will dry another's tears?but you say you'll never leave meand I wonder if you'll have the decencyto pass through my wall to the next roomwhile I dress for dinnerbut when I'm stuck in conversationwith stuffed shirts whose adorationhurts my ears, where are you then?can't you cut in when I dance with other men?it's too late not to interfere with my lifeyou've already made me a most unsuitable wifefor any man who wants to be the first his bride has slept withand you can't just fly into people's bedroomsthen expect them to calmly wave goodbyeyou've changed the course of historyand didn't even trywhere are you now--standing behind me,taking my hand?come and remind mewho you arehave you traveled farare you made of stardust tooare the angels after youtell me what I am to dobut until then I'll save your side of the bedjust come and sing me to sleep

Lockwood gave a sudden exclamation; when I looked at him, his eyes were shining. 'On second thoughts, we can scrap my last suggestion,' he said. 'Stuff the mingling. Who wants to do that? Boring. George - this library. Where is it?

She needs you, Dad," Julia says. "She has unfinished business in this world.""What is the matter with you?" Charlie asks his daughter. "Any sane person would have told me to go to the doctor. I'm seeing a headless apparition every day. Maybe my medications are conflicting. You should see the list of side effects on this stuff.

GhostsTake shape under moonlight,materialize in dreams.Shadows. Silhouettesof what is no more. Butghosts don'tbother me. The day bringsbigger things to worry aboutthan flimsy remains ofyesterday. No, spooks don'tscare me.Gauzy apparitions mightprank your psyche oragitate your nightmares,but lackingflesh and bloodthey are powerlessto hurt you-cannot hopeto inflict the kind of damagethat real, livepeople do.

Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what.

So let__ raise our glass to the accident season,To the river beneath us where we sink our souls,To the bruises and secrets, to the ghosts in the ceiling,One more drink for the watery road.

I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow-clouded, yielding nothing tangible. Her inept acrostics, maudlin evasions, theopathies - every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything seemed yellowly blurred, illusive, lost.

It's easier to dismiss ghosts in the daylight.

So what, ghosts can't hurt you. That's what I thought then.

It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I'd miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I'm sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things.

Graveyards were the one place Belladonna never saw ghosts.

When good Americans die, they go to Paris,' the ghost said, after taking a drag on a small cigarette.

He could not shake the feeling - reportedly common among ghosts - that it was not he but those he haunted whose lives were devoid of matter, sense, future.

Oh, very good,' interrupted Snape, his lip curling. 'Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. 'Ghosts are transparent.

In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.

It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them.