The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror Quotes

“You mean ‘knucklebones,’ that’s what they’s called, what the game’s called.” He’d played it himself with funny-shaped metal pieces, but it felt wicked using real bones from somebody’s hands.”
― Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror

“It sometimes seems that her getting into it with Jon is merely judiciously firm parenting, whereas when I do the same thing it’s me being oppressive, or uncool, or basically an asshole.”
― Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror

“you could have cut a cube of her tone and dropped it in a glass of scotch to bring it down to exactly the right temperature. A little below, actually.”
― Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror

“There are many, I think, who eat dry crusts and drink water, with a joy infinitely sharper than anything within the experience of the ‘practical’ epicure.” “You are speaking of the saints?” “Yes, and of the sinners, too. I think you are falling into the very general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely good; but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The merely carnal, sensual man can no more be a great sinner than he can be a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner sense of things, and, consequently, our wickedness and our goodness are alike second-rate, unimportant.” “And you think the great sinner, then, will be an ascetic, as well as the great saint?” “Great people of all kinds forsake the imperfect copies and go to the perfect originals. I have no doubt but that many of the very highest among the saints have never done a ‘good action’ (using the words in their ordinary sense). And, on the other hand, there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an ‘ill deed.’” He went out of the room for a moment, and Cotgrave, in high delight”
― Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror

“The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water,”
― Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror