Witch, Please—100 of the Creepiest, Crawliest and Spookiest Halloween Quotes
There are two kinds of people: those who limit Halloween to just dressing up in costumes and those who go crazy with Halloween spirit long before the end of October. If your yard is draped in fake cobwebs or other Halloween decor ideas, a surefire way to get into the creepy-crawly mood is to read up on some of the spookiest Halloween quotes and sayings about the trick-or-treater's favorite holiday. (We also recommend listening to "Monster Mash" and playing Halloweentown in the background. You know, for the full Halloween effect.)
We've got creepy Halloween quotes from some of the best Halloween movies, books and poems, as well as spooky (and often funny) sayings from some of the most famous Halloween-lovers, a little Tell-Tale Heart and even some passages from Frankenstein! They are sure to get you feeling ready to carve jack-o-lanterns, drink pumpkin spice, and pick out this year's epic costume.
Here are 100 of the creepiest, crawliest, and spookiest Halloween quotes to get you feeling ghoulish come October 31.
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100 Halloween Quotes
1. "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." Ray Bradbury, American Author
2. "During the day, I don't believe in ghosts. At night, I'm a little more open-minded." Unknown
3. "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." William Shakespeare, Macbeth
4. "Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see." Edgar Allan Poe, American Writer
5. "Where there is no imagination there is no horror." Arthur Conan Doyle, British Writer
6. "Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue." Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow
7. "No good deed will I do again." Elphaba, Wicked
8. "Witch parking. All others will be toad." Unknown
9. “Goodbye cruel world.” Winifred Sanderson, Hocus Pocus
10. "The world turned upside down—in a good way—for one black velvet night." Karen Fortunati, American Author
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11. "There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand." Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
12. "Fear,' the doctor said, 'is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway.'” Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
13. "I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
14. "Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story." Mason Cooley, American Aphorist
15. "Not every witch lives in Salem." Unknown
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16. "We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones." Stephen King, American Author
17. " I dropped the candies into the children's bags, thinking: You small mortals don't realize the power of your stories." Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove
18. "I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way, what bliss." Gomez, The Addams Family
19. "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. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked." Ray Bradbury, American Author
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20. "Halloween is an opportunity to be really creative." Judy Gold, American Comedian
21. "Harvey wasn't interested in the clothes, it was the masks that mesmerized him. They were like snowflakes: no two alike. Some were made of wood and of plastic; some of straw and cloth and papier-maché. Some were as bright as parrots, others as pale as parchment. Some were so grotesque he was certain they'd been carved by crazy people; others so perfect they looked like the death masks of angels. There were masks of clowns and foxes, masks like skulls decorated with real teeth, and one with carved flames instead of hair." Clive Barker, The Thief of Always
22. "Good-bye, Ichabod Crane. I curse the day you came to Sleepy Hollow.” Katrina Van Tassel, Sleepy Hollow
23. "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
24. "Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!" Bram Stoker, Irish Author
25. "It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.” Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
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26. "You must believe me, it was a horseman, a dead one! Headless!" Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow
27. "He had arranged the arms and legs in letters, and the letters spelled out a single small word: BOO. The three torsos were carefully arranged below the BOO in a quarter-circle, making a cute little Halloween smile. What a scamp." Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter
28. "Halloween shadows played upon the walls of the houses. In the sky the Halloween moon raced in and out of the clouds. The Halloween wind was blowing, not a blasting of wind but a right-sized swelling, falling, and gushing of wind. It was a lovely and exciting night, exactly the kind of night Halloween should be." Eleanor Estes, The Witch Family
29. "Halloween is an ancient druidic holiday, one the Celtic peoples have celebrated for millennia. It is the crack between the last golden rays of summer and the dark of winter; the delicately balanced tweak of the year before it is given over entirely to the dark; a time for the souls of the departed to squint, to peek and perhaps to travel through the gap." Jenny Colgan, Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams
30. "I put a spell on you because you’re mine." Jay Hawkins, American Singer-Songwriter
31. "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
32. "We gladly feast on those who would subdue us." The Addams Family
33. "Sticky fingers, tired feet; one last house, trick or treat!" Rusty Fischer, American Author
34. "Trick or treat, bag of sweets, ghosts are walking down the street." Unknown
35. "I must go in. The fog is rising." Emily Dickinson, American Poet
36. "Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend." Bill Waterson, American Cartoonist
37. "I'm wicked through and through." Elphaba, Wicked
38. “It’s all just a bunch of hocus pocus.” Max, Hocus Pocus
39. "The dead rise again, bats fly, terror strikes and screams echo, for tonight it's Halloween." Unknown
40. "When the witches go riding, and black cats are seen, the moon laughs and whispers 'tis near Halloween." Unknown
41. "Am I walking toward something I should be running away from?” Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
42. "We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!" Humbert Wolfe, British Poet
43. "On Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be." Ava Dellaria, American Author
44. "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." J.K. Rowling, English Author
45. "Now this is the point. You fancy me a mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded...” Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
46. "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." L.M. Montgomery, Canadian Author
47. "This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do." Oscar Wilde
48. "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." William Shakespeare, The Tempest
49. "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
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50. "It's Halloween; everyone's entitled to one good scare." Brackett, Halloween
51. "That's the problem. He was dead to begin with.” Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow
52. "Shadows mutter, mist replies; darkness purrs as midnight sighs." Rusty Fischer, American Author
53. "I love Halloween, and I love that feeling: the cold air, the spooky dangers lurking around the corner." Evan Peters, American Actor
54. "There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls." George Carlin, American Comedian
55. "A person should always choose a costume which is in direct contrast to her own personality." Lucy Van Pelt, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
56. "There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch." Robert Brault, American Author
57. "Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen. Voices whisper in the trees, 'Tonight is Halloween!'" Dexter Kozen
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58. "“Wench! Trollop! You bucktoothed, mop-riding firefly from hell!” Billy Butcherson, Hocus Pocus
59. "Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing/Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven
60. "Magic is really very simple, all you've got to do is want something and then let yourself have it." Aggie Cromwell, Halloweentown
61. "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
62. "We danced the Mamushka while Nero fiddled, we danced the Mamushka at Waterloo. We danced the Mamushka for Jack the Ripper, and now, Fester Addams, this Mamushka is for you." Gomez, The Addams Family
63. "I'm a witch every day. Not just for Halloween." Unknown
64. "Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds… true love?” Dracula
65. "I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey." The Criminologist, Rocky Horror Picture Show
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66. "When the spooks have a midnight jamboree/They break it up with fiendish glee/The ghosts are bad but the one that’s cursed/Is the headless horseman; he’s the worst/That’s right, he’s a fright on Halloween night! When he goes a joggin’ ‘cross the land/Holding his noggin in his hand/Demons take one look and groan/And they hit the road to parts unknown/Beware, take care he rides alone! The Headless Horseman, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
67. "There is nothing that gives more assurance than a mask." Collette, French Author
68. "Hocus pocus. Time to focus." Unknown
69. "Be afraid, be very afraid." Ronnie, The Fly
Great Halloween Quotes
70. "Nothing on Earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night." Steve Almond, American Short Story Writer
71. "Every day is Halloween, isn't it? For some of us." Tim Burton, American Filmmaker
72. "The farther we've gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we've come to need Halloween." Paula Guran, American Author
73. "I'm a homicidal maniac. They look just like everyone else." Wednesday Addams, The Addams Family
74. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself... and spiders." Unknown
75. "I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color." Wednesday Addams, The Addams Family
76. "A mask tells us more than a face." Oscar Wilde, Irish Poet
77. “It’s a full moon tonight. That’s why all the weirdos are out.” Dani, Hocus Pocus
78. "Maybe now you'll never slime a guy with a positron collider, huh?" Dr. Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters
79. "I've seen enough horror movies to know that any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly." Elizabeth, Friday the 13th
80. "Werewolves howl. Phantoms prowl. Halloween's upon us now." Richelle E. Goodrich, American Author
81. "Witch and ghost make merry on this last of dear October days." Unknown
82. "There is a town, two days journey to the north in the Hudson Highlands. It is a place called Sleepy Hollow. Have you heard of it?... An isolated farming community, mainly Dutch. Three persons have been murdered there, all within a fortnight. Each one found with the head lopped off... Clean as dandelion heads, apparently. You will take these experimentations of yours to Sleepy Hollow, and there you will detect the murderer. Bring him here to face our good justice. Will you do this?" The Burgomaster, Sleepy Hollow
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83. "Well, fancy! We desire children.” Winifred Sanderson, Hocus Pocus
84. "Men say that in this midnight hour, the disembodied have power." William Motherwell, Scottish Poet
85. "Halloween wraps fear in innocence, as though it were a slightly sour sweet. Let terror, then, be turned into a treat… " Nicholas Gordon, Poet
86. "The moon has awoken with the sleep of the sun, the light has been broken; the spell has begun." Midgard Morningstar
87. "If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween." Douglas Copeland, Canadian Author
88. "A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man woke in the night." J.M. Barrie, Scottish Author
89. "There is magic in the night when pumpkins glow by moonlight." Unknown
90. "The rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open." Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
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91. "I am all in a sea of wonders; I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul." Bram Stoker, Irish Author
92. "To live without you, only that would be torture." Gomez, The Addams Family
93. "Halloween is not only about putting on a costume, but it's about finding the imagination and costume within ourselves." Elvis Duran, Radio Show Personality
94. "It reeks of children!” Mary Sanderson, Hocus Pocus
95. "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." William Shakespeare, Macbeth
96. "'Tis the night—the night of the graves 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, American Writer
97. "She used to tell me that a full moon was when mysterious things happen and wishes come true." Shannon A. Thompson, American Author
98. "On Halloween, witches come true; wild ghosts escape from dreams. Each monster dances in the park." Nicholas Gordon, Poet
99. "There is something haunting in the light of the moon." Joseph Conrad, Polish-British Writer
100. "Have you come to sing pumpkin carols?" Linus, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
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