Halloween Quotes

A collection of scary quotes for Halloween.

Let the ghosts and witches out,
Bring the apples in.
Don’t you know it’s Halloween?
Now let the fun begin!
– Anonymous

From Ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggety beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us.
– Traditional Cornish prayer.

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 hag is astride,
This night for to ride;
The Devil and she together:
Through thick and through thin
Now out and then in,
Though ne’er so foul be the weather.
– Robert Herrick

‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
– William Shakespeare

A flash of white in the darkness
“Who-oo-ooo?” hoots the owl on the post.
A creak and a groan, a squeak and a moan,
“Ooo-oo-ooo!” comes the howl, “It’s a ghost!”
– Anonymous

“Nothing beats a haunted moonlit night on All Hallows Eve…. And on this fatal night, at this witching time, the starless sky laments black and unmoving. The somber hues of an ominous, dark forest are suddenly illuminated under the emerging face of the full moon.”
~ Kim Elizabeth

“At first cock-crow the ghosts must go
Back to their quiet graves below.”
~ Theodosia Garrison

“Bring forth the raisins and the nuts-
Tonight All-Hallows’ Spectre struts
Along the moonlit way.”
– John Kendrick Bangs

The witches fly across the sky,
The owls go, “Who? Who? Who?”
The black cats yowl and green ghosts howl,
“Scary Halloween to you!”
–Nina Willis Walter

Halloween wraps fear in innocence,
As though it were a slightly sour sweet.
Let terror, then, be turned into a treat…
~Nicholas Gordon

‘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)

“I was born on the night of Samhain, when the barrier between the worlds is whisper-thin and when magic, old magic, sings its heady and sweet song to anyone who cares to hear it.”
― Carolyn MacCullough, Once a Witch

“The farther we’ve gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we’ve come to need Halloween.”
― Paula Curan (October Dreams: A celebration of Halloween)

“Did you know that at one time trick-or-treating was stopped? It’s true. During World War II children were not allowed to trick or treat because there was a sugar shortage.”
― Linda Bozzo, Kooky Halloween Jokes to Tickle Your Funny Bone

“Beware! As you trick or treat. These creatures will find you and make you smell their feet.”
― Casey Browning, Ol’ Halloween Night

“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.”
– George Carlin

I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung and Christianity and candles have been introduced.
– Henry David Thoreau.

There was… a serious and weird feeling, on Halloween night, not felt so much on any other night; witches and evil spirits were believed to be more numerous than usual; fairies were believed to be unusually active; ghosts were supposed to make their appearance on this night; and a full-dress performance of the watch in the church-porch on that night was capable of teaching the watchers that the Angel of Death is sometimes nearer than they imagine. – A.R. Wright.

There was mystery here; there was mystery in the black cats and walking skeletons and living scarecrows that we saw decorating school windows, mystery in the grinning gargoyles and jack-o-lanterns on all the porches. I loved Halloween.
– Jack Santino

When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam,
May luck be yours on Halloween.

On Hallowe’en the thing you must do
Is pretend that nothing can frighten you
And if somethin’ scares you and you want to run
Just let on like it’s Hallowe’en fun.

Men say, that in this midnight hour,
The disembodied have power
To wander as it liketh them,
By wizard oak and fairy stream,—
Through still and solemn places,
And by old walls and tombs, to dream,
With pale, cold, mournful faces….
– William Motherwell, “Midnight and Moonshine”

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, “Tonight is Halloween!”
– Dexter Kozen

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.
– Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr.

A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
– H.P. Lovecraft (Hallowe’en in a Suburb)

‘Tis the night – the night
Of the grave’s delight…
– Arthur Cleveland Coxe.

we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.
– Titus Lucretius Carus.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
~ H. P. Lovecraft.