The Squatter Quotes

“The old farmhouse itself won’t cost you a penny, my dear. But it does come with a price.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“There’s a certain comfort in knowing what’s gone is gone, but what’s half-gone is pure agony.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“You see, Richard, I’ve been sort of living with the afterlife for the last few years. A chunk of me broke off and died with my son and husband that night. Ever since the car accident I feel dislocated, dislodged, unhinged, undone, constant déjà vu. Sometimes I hear an echo where I shouldn’t.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“A house doesn't always make a home...”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“There is nothing in life or the afterlife that can scare me now.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“When we are young, we don’t realise we are young. When we are old we do realise we are old. True freedom we had as children only exists in memory.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“She can be an old dragon,’ the secretary whispered from behind the glass.
‘Dragons don’t exist,’ Molly answered.
‘This one does and she spits fire.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Molly had experienced death in life and now she was experiencing life in death. Somewhere along the way, the two had become confused and fused. In a nightmarish, endearing way, Molly Greene was coming full circle.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“You’re going to be the voice of the voiceless.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Everyone loves a good ghost story because it’s just a story.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“In time, the cockatoo would become the Greene’s canary in a coal mine.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Children become someone else when they talk in their sleep; possessed and speaking the absurd gibberish dialect of Sleeplandia.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“...that reassuringly cosy child’s night light that staved off all night terrors…all night terrors except the real ones.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“An old building becomes a character by absorbing the energy of those who once lived in it and called it home.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Girls, I think it’s time you were formally introduced to our squatter — your soul brother.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“My extended family and I believe the child who walks alone is a festering wound which has turned the house septic. We are looking for the anti…septic.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Then along came a Covid spider, sat down beside her, and frightened her customers away.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“I can hear voices in the fireplace.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“They say truth can be a bitter pill to swallow, but lies can be even more of a bitter pill and will fester in the belly. Molly wailed, bringing herself to the point of gagging and vomiting, as she flushed the demons from her system, these fiendish angels which had haunted her more than anything this possessed house could ever raise. She’d never spoken about why Mike and Henry had been taken in the accident; her girls never knew it should’ve been their own mother on the road that night, but she’d been all liquored up at a silly work party, and she was taking that to her grave — where she should be right now.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“But now she crumbled as something swam up from the deep well of pain and murky sorrow, where all her bottled tears had lain stagnant, and bit her with its needle teeth.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“There’s no such thing as trespassing where evil spirits walk — there are no boundaries. I’m here to bless the fledglings of the house. Children’s laughter is sweetest at night,’ the creepy vision crooned. ‘You’re playing with your children’s lives. Wasn’t one enough?”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“If ever the witch in the Hansel and Gretel existed, then Molly was looking at her tonight…and her house made of sweets and cakes was not too far away in the forest. And in that house of goodies was a Nazi oven.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Standing in the back yard, under the glow of the porch light with the fluttering moths, stood a wiry ancient woman, dressed in grieving black from head to toe. She stood solemnly in Molly’s back yard, as if by a graveside, and in many ways, the farmhouse was. In her arthritic vulture clutches, the woman held rosary beads. One by one, she counted the beads through gnarled fingers while mechanically muttering an Our Father.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Molly Greene had been through far too much in this life to be intimidated by anyone from the afterlife.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Molly gasped for air, never felt more alive now that she was dying…”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“Only the sweet innocence of childhood could make this music. Let’s appreciate their senseless yet timeless music while we have it.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“The giant mouldy screen on Molly’s bedroom ceiling began to twirl and swirl in on itself. A black vortex emitting an overpowering stench of decay and mould began to drip from the ceiling like a hellish stalactite. Molly’s pitiful sobs cut to a sudden gagging halt in her throat as her child — her thing — oozed from the ceiling, descending down through the whirlwind of blight, sending Molly Greene into heaving hyperventilation.”
― Jonathan Dunne, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“They say truth can be a bitter pill to swallow, but lies can be even more of a bitter pill and will fester in the belly.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“It was starting to look like the Greene clan had a bright future. The trick was to not look too far into that future.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel

“The farmhouse would be their victory; a broken house for a broken family.”
― Jon Downes, The Squatter: An Old Castle Novel