The Ghost and Mrs. Muir Quotes

“Knowledge and book learning are not wisdom," said the captain.

"Is this book wisdom?" asked Lucy, putting the manuscript back on the table.

"It has some elements of wisdom in it, me dear," replied the captain. "I did not lead a very wise life myself but it was a full one and a grown-up one. You come to age very often through shipwreck and disaster, and at the heart of the whirlpool some men find God.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Oh, Lucia the captain said softly, you are so little and so lovely. how I would have liked to have taken you to Norway and shown you the fiords in the midnight sun, and to China- what you've missed, Lucia, by being born too late to travel the Seven Seas with me! And what I've missed, too.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“It was quiet in the room. Only the clock ticked on in the remorseless, mechanical minutes that men have made for themselves to measure away the joy and sadness of their earthly lives.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“I am perfectly well and happy here.... All I want is to be left alone to live my life as I wish and not as other people think best for themselves.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Real love isn't blind, it sees everything and has an endless capacity for forgiving.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“...And you will never be lonely either," said Anna. "You shall come and live with us."

"No, darling," Lucy said quietly. Impossible to explain, even to Anna, that loneliness was not a matter of solitude but of the spirit and often much greater in company for that very reason.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“I must be very selfish, she thought, for I want to set nothing and no one right; all I want is to be left in peace to make what I can of this problem called life for myself and my children.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“...tell me something of your other existence.... At least you can tell me if it's a happy state," persisted Lucy.

"That depends on the individual," replied Captain Gregg. "If a man has lived on earth merely for earthly desires of ambition, possessions, drink, and women, he'll have a hell of a time at first because he'll find no means of satisfying his lusts―but here's something for you to think about, Lucia. Have you ever heart of a happy ghost?"

"No," replied Lucy.

"No," said the Captain, "and why not? Because only the unhappy return to earth―the haunted―that's a new idea for you. The souls that return are haunted in the next state by what has happened on earth. The average after-lifer never wants to return."

"But isn't that very selfish?" asked Lucy. "I mean when they see their relations and friends weeping their hearts out for one word of reassurance and comfort, don't you think they might come back just once to tell them all is well?"

"Why," asked the Captain, "when all that's wanting is their own faith?”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“A sea-gull planed its way down to the water on curving, outstretched wings. The salt air blew coolly on her flushed cheeks, and she smiled to herself in her happiness.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Because, as I have told you so many times, I have no words to make you understand," said the captain. It' s all the beauty and serenity and nobility you have ever experienced on earth. It's all your grandest and most generous feelings, and the finest sunsets and greatest music- and then you' re only on the fringe of understanding.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“The devil himself was in heaven before he fell, and his temptations may be full of beauty and subtlety.”
― Josephine Leslie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“And put that in your pipe and smoke it, madam," said the captain triumphantly.”
― Josephine Leslie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“I don't want to interfere with my children's lives any more than you do, but I want them to be happy. Must growing up always mean a breaking up?" she asked sadly.

"No, but it often means a breaking away," the captain said. "And you wouldn't want them to stay anchored for the rest of their existence, growing barnacles all over them and rotting away with rust.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Can one be really happy at some one else's expense?”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“I'm sorry... but it's true―you can't live other people's lives for them. Go home and make something worth while of your own.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Only the clock ticked on in the remorseless, mechanical minutes that men have made for themselves to measure away the joy and sadness of their earthly lives.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“If you give fate a chance it will always work itself out, but men are such fools, rushing round in circles with their eyes shut, interfering with each other, smashing everything up through their own blind stupidity, and then when they’re hopelessly lost, sitting down and cursing God for not answering them when they never stopped to listen.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Loneliness was not a matter of solitude but of the spirit and often much greater in company for that very reason.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“I wonder if there is something wrong with me, she thought, that I can get so much from so little, because all my joy comes from not doing–not spending summer afternoons in stuffy drawing-rooms listening to women setting their neighbours’ morals to rights over the bridge table, not spending summer evenings listening to men and women setting the world’s affairs to right over five-course dinners, not sewing in circles, nor reading in groups. I must be very selfish, she thought, for I want set nothing and no-one right; all I want is to be left in peace to make what I can of this problem called life for myself and my children. What would the world be like, she wondered, if everyone minded his own business?”
― Josephine Leslie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“For all his charm and good looks he's nothing but a dilettante with enough money to indulge his fancies.”
― Josephine Leslie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Damn it, my language is most controlled, madam,” said Captain Gregg stiffly, “and as for my morals, I can assure you that no woman has ever been the worse in body or pocket for knowing me, and I’d like to know how many mealy-mouthed psalm-singers can say the same. I’ve lived a man’s life and I’m not ashamed of it, but I’ve always tried to tell the truth and shame the devil.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Not that her life had been unhappy, it had just not been her life at all.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“There it is coming out again, thought Lucy, the possessiveness of the Muirs with their "my...my...my," trying to force the world and everyone in it into their own pattern as if they had been given the copyright of living by God Himself.”
― Josephine Leslie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“I didn't live a very wise life myself, but it was a good one and a grown up one.”
― Josephine Leslie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“I should have known better, because interfering unasked in other people’s lives, whether from kindness or cruelty, is one of the greater sins, and I knew it.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Like most women you are riddled with the missionary instinct, that always seeks to change a man’s nature and make it a little higher than the angels; whereas a man knows he can’t remake any woman, and if his wife doesn’t suit him, he accepts her as she is or goes out and finds another——”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Like most women you are riddled with the missionary instinct, that always seeks to change a man’s nature and make it a little higher than the angels; whereas a man knows he can’t remake any woman, and if his wife doesn’t suit him, he accepts her as she is or goes out and finds another”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Era imposible de explicar, ni siquiera a Anna, que sentirse solo no tenía nada que ver con la soledad, sino con el espíritu, y que por esa misma razón esa sensación se veía agravada a menudo estando en compañía.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“(...) el amor verdadero no es ciego, lo ve todo y es infinitamente indulgente”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

“Aquel día de Navidad fue el más feliz que Lucy había pasado desde que era una niña. Nada estropeó la jornada, que arrancó con calcetines a rebosar de baratijas caseras, y continuó con pavo, pudín de ciruelas y sorpresas navideñas, una misa navideña de villancicos, castañas asadas en el fuego de la chimenea y, para rematar, una noche de sueño apacible, con el rutilante árbol de Navidad repleto de estrellas extendiendo sus ramas de fantasía a lo largo de las horas como si de verdad poseyera el poder mágico de transformar hasta el fregado de platos en algo romántico.”
― R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir