There’s something magical about this time of year. Hoodies and sweaters, scary movies, and cuddling up for a movie night on the couch make it exceptionally cozy. It’s also spooky season! Want to get into the spirit? We’ve put together this list of chilling Halloween quotes to set the mood.
Halloween Quotes
1. There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world. —Jean Baudrillard, America
2. Everyone should wear a costume on Halloween, except those for whom it would be redundant. —Adair Lara, Welcome to Earth, Mom
3. Halloween is so close I can practically taste the children’s tears. —Frances Bean Cobain
4. Halloween has its roots in the pagan festival of Samhain. … Samhain was the time when the veil between living and dead was thinnest, and spirits roamed the land of mortals. Fires were extinguished and rekindled, and people dressed up to frighten away the unfriendly departed. —Kathy Reichs, Fatal Voyage
5. Everything from Halloween through Christmas I like. I like tradition. People might not realize that about me because of my lifestyle, but I actually appreciate ritual. —Lucinda Williams, Esquire
6. Halloween seems to last forever, until it is finally time to put on one’s costume and demand candy from strangers. —Daniel Handler, The End
7. Nothing but great antiquity can make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends there. —Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
8. So when I open the door on Halloween, I am confronted by three or four imaginary heroes, such as G.I. Joe, Conan the Barbarian and Oliver North, who would look very terrifying except that they are three feet tall and facing in random directions. They stand there silently for several seconds before an adult voice hisses from the darkness behind them: “Say ‘Trick or treat!’” —Dave Barry, The World According to Dave Barry
9. I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real, that’s the spooky part. —Tom Clancy
10. Just because I don’t have on a silly black costume and carry a silly broom and wear a silly black hat, doesn’t mean that I’m not a witch. I’m a witch all the time and not just on Halloween. —E.L. Konigsburg, Talk, Talk
11. I saw thousands of pumpkins last night come floating in on the tide, bumping up against the rocks and rolling up on the beaches; it must be Halloween in the sea. —Richard Brautigan
12. When I was younger, I loved graveyards. They weren’t spooky so much as mysterious. Each tombstone another story to uncover. Another life to learn about. Now that I’m older—I won’t say how old—I hate graveyards. The only life—or rather death—I see in the tombstones is my own. —Pseudonymous Bosch, If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late: The Secret Series
13. If you are an adult, and you are planning to dress up on Halloween … don’t. I will find you. I will hurt you. —Lewis Black
14. If you want to scare your boyfriend next Halloween, come dressed as what he fears most. Commitment. —Peter Nelson, Real Man Tells All
15. We used to go around tipping outhouses over, or turning over corn shocks on Halloween. Anything to be mean. —Loretta Lynn
16. The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard. —Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
17. Where’er we tread ’tis haunted, holy ground. —Lord Byron
18. It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
—Edgar Allan Poe, Ulalume
19. This planet is haunted by us; the other occupants just evade boredom by filling our skies and seas with monsters. —John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies
20. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. —Robert Louis Stevenson, Memories and Portraits
21. We’re all haunted in one way or another, are we not? If not by spirits, then by our own demons and regrets. —Teresa Medeiros, The Temptation of Your Touch
22. I grew up in a haunted castle, boys. If you’ve never had a ghost try to push you down the stairs, you’ve never lived. —Gaelen Foley, My Wicked Marquess
23. For time is inches
And the heart’s changes,
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted.
—W.H. Auden
24. Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. —Stephen King, The Shining
25. Miraculously, smoke curled out of his own mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, as if his soul had been extinguished within his lungs at the very moment the sweet pumpkin gave up its incensed ghost. —Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree
26. What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow. —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
27. Oh, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast,
They gave us for our tea.
—Lewis Carroll
28. St Andrews by the Northern sea,
A haunted town it is to me!
—Andrew Lang, “Almae Matres”
29. All houses in which men have lived and suffered and died are haunted houses. —Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Red Lamp
30. Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, toward his design
Moves like a ghost.
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth
31. The meagre lighthouse all in white, haunting the seaboard, as if it were the ghost of an edifice that had once had colour and rotundity, dripped melancholy tears after its late buffeting by the waves. —Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit
32. We know so very little about this strange planet we live on, this haunted world where all answers lead only to more mystery. —Edward Abbey
33. And as to being in a fright
Allow me to remark
That Ghosts have just as good a right
In every way, to fear the light,
As Men to fear the dark.
—Lewis Carroll
34. But you can’t kill a demon because they’re evil spirits, like a ghost. —Jack T. Chick
35. “Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?” She had shaken her head slowly. “Men and women who can’t get over their past. … That’s what ghosts are.” —Stephen King, Needful Things
36. Never walk near the bed; to a ghost your ankle is your most vulnerable part—once in bed, you’re safe; he may lie around under the bed all night, but you’re safe as daylight. If you still have doubts, pull the blanket over your head. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
37. How are we to account for the strange human craving for the pleasure of feeling afraid which is so much involved in our love of ghost stories? —Virginia Woolf
38. I saw a sheet lying on the floor, it must have been a ghost that had passed out. … So I kicked it. —Mitch Hedberg
39. There is something beyond the grave; death does not end all, and the pale ghost escapes from the vanquished pyre. —Propertius
40. I don’t believe in evil, I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots. —Karen Blixen
41. During the day, I don’t believe in ghosts. At night, I’m a little more open-minded. —Unknown
42. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth
43. No good deed will I do again. —Elphaba, Wicked
44. I dropped the candies into the children’s bags, thinking: You small mortals don’t realize the power of your stories. —Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove
45. Good-bye, Ichabod Crane. I curse the day you came to Sleepy Hollow. —Katrina Van Tassel, Sleepy Hollow
46. A person should always choose a costume which is in direct contrast to her own personality. —Lucy Van Pelt, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
47. By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth
48. There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. —George Carlin
49. There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
50. Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see. —Proverbs
51. Just because I cannot see it doesn’t mean I can’t believe it! —Jack Skellington, The Nightmare Before Christmas
52. When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam, may luck be yours on Halloween. —Unknown
53. “Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly; “’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.” —Mary Howitt, The Spider and the Fly
54. It’s as much fun to scare as to be scared. —Vincent Price
55. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. —Arthur Conan Doyle
56. There’s a little witch in all of us. —Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic
57. October was always the least dependable of months… full of ghosts and shadows. —Joy Fielding, Tell Me No Secrets
58. The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. —Eden Phillpotts
59. Weaving spiders come not here;
Hence you long-legged spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence.
—William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
60. It’s Halloween. Everyone’s entitled to one good scare. —Sheriff Leigh Brackett, Halloween
61. Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue. —Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow
62. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly. —Lizabeth, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
63. Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things underground, and much more in the skies. —Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
64. All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. These are the rooms of ruin where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one … —Stephen King, The Waste Lands
65. I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre a night or two before and she reminded me of the faces rising out of the witches’ cauldron. —Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
66. There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all of the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery. —Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
67. There’s something incredibly liberating about a holiday that encourages children to take candy from strangers. —Steve Almond, Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America
68. I love Halloween, and I love that feeling: the cold air, the spooky dangers lurking around the corner. —Evan Peters
69. She used to tell me that a full moon was when mysterious things happen and wishes come true. —Shannon A. Thompson, Bad Bloods
70. It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider. —Jonathan Swift
71. When I was a child there were many witches, and they bewitched both cattle and men, especially children. —Martin Luther
72. The agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair. —Edgar Allan Poe, The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe
73. ’Tis the night – the night
Of the grave’s delight,
And the warlocks are at their play;
Ye think that without
The wild winds shout,
But no, it is they – it is they.
—Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Halloween: A Romaunt
74. Werewolves howl. Phantoms prowl. Halloween’s upon us now. —Richelle E. Goodrich, Hope Evermore
75. I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. —Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
76. I just went to work for a vampire, was scared by a spider, and got knocked down by a tanning bomb. And that’s just my day, not my week. —Rachel Caine, Fade Out
77. Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves! —Humbert Wolfe
78. On Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be. —Ava Dellaira
79. The farther we’ve gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we’ve come to need Halloween. —Paula Guran
80. It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. —Edgar Allan Poe, The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe
81. You ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck? —Cole Sear, The Sixth Sense
82. Sisters, All Hallows’ Eve has become a night of frolic, where children wear costumes and run amok! —Winifred Sanderson, Hocus Pocus
83. Isn’t the view beautiful? It takes my breath away. Well, it would if I had any. —The Corpse Bride, The Corpse Bride
84. That’s what you dream about? Being a monster? —Edward Cullen, Twilight
85. Was deciding if I should dress as Batman or Spiderman for Halloween, when I realized I’m a grown man. So, Batman. —Stephen Colbert
86. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. —Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
87. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them. —Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
88. I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don’t have names. —Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching
89. ’Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world. —William Shakespeare, Hamlet
90. The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of sorrow. —Edgar Allan Poe, Selected Poems
91. For Halloween, I’m going as that feeling you get at a store when you try to refold a sweater properly and put it back on the shelf. —Rob Delaney
92. We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight. —H.P. Lovecraft, From Beyond
93. Be careful in the company of monsters that you don’t become one. —Cindy Gerard, Take No Prisoners
94. One of the effects of fear is to disturb the senses and cause things to appear other than what they are. —Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
95. Monsters merge and welter through the water’s mounting din. All hands, stand fast! A sailor sprints aloft, hangs, swelling spider-like, among invisible nets, surveys his slowly undulating snares, and waits. —Adam Mickiewicz, The Crossing
96. And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot. —Edgar Allan Poe, The Conqueror Worm
97. “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!” —Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
98. So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. —T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
99. Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough. —Walt Whitman
100. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. —H.P. Lovecraft
101. But I can think of nothing on earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night. —Steve Almond, Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America
Enjoy these Halloween quotes? Check out 30 Spooktacular Halloween Poems for Kids of All Ages!
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