“But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.”
Source: The Thirteenth Tale
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Diane Setterfield 42
English novelist 1964Related quotes

“Some are haunted by ghosts. I am haunted by stories.”
The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009), afterword to "Kevin Malone", p. 355
Nonfiction

“From haunted spring and dale
Edged with poplar pale
The parting genius is with sighing sent.”
Hymn, stanza 20, line 184
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 32 : Morning
Context: One of the ghosts — an old woman — beckoned, urging her to come close.
Then she spoke, and Mary heard her say:
"Tell them stories. They need the truth. You must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories."
That was all, and then she was gone. It was one of those moments when we suddenly recall a dream that we’ve unaccountably forgotten, and back in a flood comes all the emotion we felt in our sleep. It was the dream she’d tried to describe to Atal, the night picture; but as Mary tried to find it again, it dissolved and drifted apart, just as these presences did in the open air. The dream was gone.
All that was left was the sweetness of that feeling, and the injunction to tell them stories.

“They wonder in silence and turn pale for the dubious thunderbolt.”
Mirantur taciti et dubio pro fulmine pallent.
Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 920

"The Blank Page"
Last Tales (1957)
Context: Why, you are to become a story teller, and I shall give you the reasons! Hear then: Where the storyteller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of silence. Whether a small snotty lass understands it or not.

“Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.”
Variant: Art is a house that tries to be haunted.
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson