quotations about Halloween
Halloween is like saying 'nya-nya' to death and the devil. It's aversion therapy for death. We're facing our worst fears by becoming them: death, monsters, the unknown.
P. D. CACEK
attributed, Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America's Fright Night
In receiving something in their hands, they establish, on a symbolic level that they do not understand, a brotherly exchange between the visible and the invisible worlds. That is why the Halloween masquerades ... are in fact sacred ceremonies.
JEAN MARKALE
Halloween: histoire et traditions
Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades.
RAY BRADBURY
The Halloween Tree
Halloween's eve is also known as mischief night. Kids are supposed go around playing pranks tonight. That's great, just what teenagers need -- another excuse to be jerks.
CRAIG FERGUSON
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Oct. 30, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Oct. 30, 2013
When witches go riding, & black cats are seen, the moon laughs & whispers, 'tis near Halloween.
ANONYMOUS
19th-century Halloween postcard
My favorite Halloween candy is the candy corn. It comes in four colors: white, yellow, orange, brown. Those are also the stages of your teeth rotting after you eat it.
JAY LENO
The Tonight Show, Oct. 31, The Tonight Show, Oct. 31, 2012
From Ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good lord, deliver us.
CORNISH PRAYER
Halloween is and always will be a day of celebration, because it was intended to be that way. No matter what a person believes in, Halloween will appeal to them, just like other pre-Christian holidays. Why is this? The answer is simple ... mankind needs the imagery.
DRACONIS BLACKTHORNE
Opvs Daemonvm
One year when I was pretty young, maybe seven or eight, I insisted on going [trick-or-treating] as Humpty Dumpty, which was this very elaborate, really unwieldy costume that I designed.... Thousands of pillows. And my father, he was an upholsterer, he made the cover for this, which covered like ... I was a sofa. I was a small sofa. Except without nails or tacks. I remember that Halloween the most because it was the worst. Even as a child, I remember the worst things, as opposed to the best things. Every single house I went to, out of a thousand houses, the mother of the house had to completely reconstruct my ... restuff me. All the pillows were falling out, it was raining, and because I was a very -- I don't know how to put this -- kind of a dictator as a child, it meant that every time I stopped in the street to restuff myself, one thousand children that were following me also had to stop, even though they were wearing much more sensible costumes. That is my most memorable Halloween memory. That was the last time I was a fashion victim.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
interview, Index Magazine, 1997
Halloween is a day in which some people choose to wear a mask ... while others finally feel safe to take theirs off.
STEVE MARABOLI
attributed, goodreads
At the very glimpse of a Jack-o'-lantern
I've got one foot on the bus to Scranton.
When Halloween next delivers the goods,
You may duck for apples--I'll duck for the woods.
OGDEN NASH
"Trick or Trek"
This Halloween you come one week.
You masquerade
as a vermilion sleek,
fat, crosseyed fox in a parade
or, where grim jackolanterns leer,
go with your bag from door to door
foraging for treats.
W. D. SNODGRASS
Heart's Needle
I miss the days when Halloween was a simple holiday about making ritual sacrifices to evil spirits to ensure a plentiful harvest.
JIMMY KIMMEL
Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Oct. 27, 2011
No one came to my house to trick-or-treat. I think the moat might be scaring people away.
JIMMY KIMMEL
Jimmy Kimmel Live, Nov. 1, 2010
There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
"Astral America", America
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The jack-o-lantern follows me with tapered, glowing eyes.
His yellow teeth grin evily. His cackle I despise.
But I shall have the final laugh when Halloween is through.
This pumpkin king I'll split in half to make a pie for two.
RICHELLE E. GOODRICH
Slaying Dragons
Help transform Halloween into a holiday with some ethical values, have children collect food for the hungry rather than candy for the well-fed.
JEFFREY K. SALKIN
Putting God on the Guest List
'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
Halloween: A Romaunt
It was Halloween that did me in, that single day when your children turn to you for imagination and creativity, the one day of the year when you must transcend fantasy.
ERMA BOMBECK
Forever Erma