On Hallowe'en the thing
you must do
Is pretend that nothing
can frighten you
An' if somethin' scares you
and you want to run
Jus' let on like
it's Hallowe'en fun.
- - - from an Early Nineteenth Century Halloween Postcard

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
- - - Emily Dickinson

'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

If a man harbors any sort of fear, it makes him landlord to a ghost.
- - - Lloyd Douglas

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!"
- - - Dexter Kozen

Fear is nature's warning signal to get busy.
- - - Henry C. Link

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

Be wary then; best safety lies in fear. 
- - - Shakespeare "Hamlet"

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.
- - - Shakespeare "Macbeth"

Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away- 
The dead, forgotten this many a day! 
- - - Virna Sheard

From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us! 
- - - Scottish saying 

Men say that in this midnight hour, 
The disembodièd have power 
To wander as it liketh them, 
By wizard oak and fairy stream. 
- - - William Motherwell

At first cock-crow the ghosts must go
Back to their quiet graves below.
- - -Theodosia Garrison

'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
- - -William Shakespeare



Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is
increased with tales, so is the other.
- - -Sir Francis Bacon, Essays [1625], "Of Death"



To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
- - -Sir Francis Bacon, Essays [1625], "Of Seditions and Troubles



Ghosts, like ladies, never speak till spoke to.
- - -Richard Harris Barham



For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light
sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in
terror and imagine will come true.
- - -Titus Lucretius Carus [99-55 B.C.], De Rerum Natura, bk. III, l. 87



Where there is no imagination there is no horror.
- - -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle



There is a sacred HORROR about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills;
but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a
masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.
- - -Victor Hugo



The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life—the
terror of art.
- - -One of the best quotes by Franz Kafka



From ghoulish and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
- - - Scottish saying



Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's
sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth
boil and bubble.
- - -William Shakespeare (a quote from "Macbeth")



What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy
night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the
waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with
snow, which, like a sheeted specter, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with
curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread
to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind
him! and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among
the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scouring!
- - - Washington Irving (a quote from "The Legend of Sleep Hollow")



Bring forth the raisins and the nuts- Tonight All-Hallows' Specter struts Along the moonlit
way.
- - -John Kendrick Bangs