This House Is Haunted Quotes

“There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you?
It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“Should women read, Miss Caine? There’s a question for you. Does it excite them too much?”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“before we learn to feel afraid of things, our bodies know how to do them anyway. It’s one of the more disappointing aspects of growing older. We fear more so we can do less.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“I never really noticed it any more, in the way that one often ignores familiar things, like seat cushions or loved ones.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“You are not there, Father,” I cried. “I wake up at Gaudlin Hall, I spend most of my day there, I sleep there at night. And throughout it all there is but one thought running through my mind.”
“And that is?”
“This house is haunted.”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“In school, the other girls formed alliances which always excluded me. They called me names; I will not repeat them here. They made fun of my unshapely body, my pale skin, my untamed hair. I do not know why I was born this way.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“Life is suffering. Until the great day of judgement, when peace and equanimity may be restored for those who are pure of heart and deed.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“No woman will ever take care of my children but me, she said. I will not allow it, do you understand?
And after I am gone Madge Toxley, if you try to make them yours, then you will live to regret it.”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“I blame Charles Dickens for the death of my father'.”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“Well, I’m not advocating it,” I said. “I just mean that before we learn to feel afraid of things, our bodies know how to do them anyway. It’s one of the more disappointing aspects of growing older. We fear more so we can do less.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“His position, like so many of his ilk, was one of uncontested and unearned respect.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“death was a natural phenomenon, albeit a sorrowful one for those left behind, but one that every man and woman must accept as the price we pay for life.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“I said my goodbyes to Madge at the front door and watched her for a few moments as she made her way down the driveway before closing it again. At first I rested my forehead against the woodwork, wondering what I might do next, but as I turned, a hand grabbed me by the neck and threw me across the floor. I hit the wall of the hallway with a scream and felt a body, invisible, rushing towards me. Before it could reach me, however, another presence swept in from my left side and there was a sound like thunder as they collided, one roaring at the other, before both presences disappeared entirely, leaving only one thing, one familiar thing, in their wake. The scent of cinnamon.”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“It’s not so long ago that men of your ilk believed in witches and superstition,” I pointed out. “Medieval times,” he said, waving a hand in the air to dismiss the notion. “This is 1867. The Church has come a long way since then.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“leaving me an orphan like those characters I had spoken of the night before, if one can truly be called an orphan at twenty-one years of age.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“I've always considered myself to be the sturdy type. You know, the sort who can put up with any unpleasant situation if I have to.”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“There is cruelty in the world, Eliza, you can see that, can’t you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“Hay mas cosas en el cielo y en la tierra que todas las que pueda soñar la filosofía.”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“There are days when I rather detest living in the year 1867. Everything moves so quickly. Change is happening at such a pace. I preferred the way of life thirty years ago when I was a boy.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“the ground for I know not how long. Of course”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“had”
― John Boyne, This House Is Haunted

“I just mean that before we learn to feel afraid of things, our bodies know how to do them anyway. It’s one of the more disappointing aspects of growing older. We fear more so we can do less.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“The portrait was a familiar one, of course. It had been hanging on that wall for so long that perhaps I never really noticed it any more, in the way that one often ignores familiar things, like seat cushions or loved ones.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“God chooses when we should enter this world and when we should leave it. He does not make half-decisions and leave souls lingering in crisis. He is decisive. He is no Hamlet, if you wish to speak in Shakespearean terms. Those would be the actions of a cruel and merciless Lord, not the loving one we read of in the Bible.” “You don’t think God can be cruel and merciless?” I asked, trying not to laugh and provoke him even further. “Is your reading of the Bible so superficial that you do not recognize barbarity on every page?” “Miss Caine!” “Think not that I am unfamiliar with the testaments, Reverend. And it seems to me that the God of whom you speak has a great gift for brutality and malice. He is something of a specialist in the subject.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“The Bible is written by men,” I declared. “It has gone through so many changes, so many linguistic translations over the centuries that it adapts and re-creates itself in the form of the time in which the reader engages with it. Only a fool believes that the words of the Bible are the words delivered by Christ.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“Other people had friends. Of course they did; it was the natural way of things. There are those who are comfortable in the company of others, with the sharing of intimacies and common secrets.”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted

“and been committed to a home for the bewildered”
― John Boyne, This House is Haunted