One night, when he was studying the course of the moon and its revolutions and was gazing open-mouthed at the heavens, a lizard crapped upon him from the top of the roof.

— Aristophanes, The Clouds

I never seemed to like the spring for what it was; I always loved it for what it might have been. In the head. In the heart of hearts. It is in my ability, I think, to love something fully only if I am naturally, compulsively, irrationally drawn to it.

—Anne Sexton, at some point

Sex has an x in it because the lovers cross just there and forever, and that letter, that character, has, in itself, no meaning, and no sympathy or mercy.

—Larry Levis in conversation with David Wojahn, 1982

Murderous parlor music.

Henrik Ibsen disliked the English title, Ghosts. The original title, Gengangere, can be literally translated as "again walkers", "ones who return", or "revenants". It has a double meaning of both "ghosts" and "events that repeat themselves.

OSWALD. He was one of the first doctors in Paris. I told him my symptoms; and then he set to work asking me a string of questions which I thought had nothing to do with the matter. I couldn't imagine what the man was after—

MRS. ALVING. Well?

OSWALD. At last he said: "There has been something worm-eaten in you from your birth." He used that very word—vermoulu.

MRS. ALVING. [Breathlessly.] What did he mean by that?

OSWALD. I didn't understand either, and begged him to explain himself more clearly. And then the old cynic said—[Clenching his fist] Oh—!

MRS. ALVING. What did he say?

OSWALD. He said, "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."

MRS. ALVING. [Rising slowly.] The sins of the fathers—!

OSWALD. I very nearly struck him in the face—

MRS. ALVING. [Walks away across the room.] The sins of the fathers—

OSWALD. [Smiles sadly.] Yes; what do you think of that? Of course I assured him that such a thing was out of the question. But do you think he gave in? No, he stuck to it; and it was only when I produced your letters and translated the passages relating to father—

MRS. ALVING. But then—?

OSWALD. Then of course he had to admit that he was on the wrong track; and so I learned the truth—the incomprehensible truth! I ought not to have taken part with my comrades in that lighthearted, glorious life of theirs. It had been too much for my strength. So I had brought it upon myself!

MRS. ALVING. Oswald! No, no; do not believe it!

OSWALD. No other explanation was possible, he said. That's the awful part of it. Incurably ruined for life—by my own heedlessness! All that I meant to have done in the world—I never dare think of it again—I'm not able to think of it. Oh! if I could only live over again, and undo all I have done! [He buries his face in the sofa.]

But how should we speak of the fathers in the murderous parlor?

OSWALD. [Impatiently.]Oh, "father,"—"father"! I never knew anything of father. I remember nothing about him, except that he once made me sick.

MRS. ALVING. This is terrible to think of! Ought not a son to love his father, whatever happens?

OSWALD. When a son has nothing to thank his father for? has never known him? Do you really cling to that old superstition?—you who are so enlightened in other ways?

MRS. ALVING. Can it be only a superstition—?

OSWALD. Yes; surely you can see that, mother. It's one of those notions that are current in the world, and so—

MRS. ALVING. [Deeply moved.] Ghosts!

OSWALD. [Crossing the room.] Yes; you may call them ghosts.