Haunted Hotel Quotes

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.

I'm not afraid of werewolves or vampires or haunted hotels, I'm afraid of what real human beings to do other real human beings.

In every class of society, gratitude is the rarest of all human virtues.

What does it mean to be a ghost, let alone to be there, or here? There are so many ways to haunt a person, or a life—

and i wonder if i ever will find a language to speak of the things that haunt me most.

What lurking temptations to forbidden tenderness find their finding-places in a woman's dressing-gown, when she is alone in her room at night!

Demandez-vous s´il y a une explication au mystere de la vie et de la mort

There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold.

...that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that’s why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.

But you make allowances for women; we all talk nonsense. Good

Forgive me, dear Mr. Troy! I am very unhappy, and very unreasonable—but I am only a woman, and you must not expect too much from me.

I smell your cigar. Delicious! Give me one directly.

That God is rich in mercy means that your regions of deepest shame and regret are not hotels through which divine mercy passes but homes in which divine mercy abides. It means the things about you that make you cringe most, make him hug hardest. It means his mercy is not calculating and cautious, like ours. It is unrestrained, flood-like, sweeping, magnanimous. It means our haunting shame is not a problem for him, but the very thing he loves most to work with. It means our sins do not cause his love to take a hit. Our sins cause his love to surge forward all the more. It means on that day when we stand before him, quietly, unhurriedly, we will weep with relief, shocked at how impoverished a view of his mercy-rich heart we had. 

I give you better than proof, gentlemen; I give you my positive opinion.

I remember, around age ten, beholding the scene in The Shining in which the hot young woman whom Jack Nicholson is lewdly embracing in the haunted hotel bathroom ages rapidly in his arms, screeching from nubile chick to putrefying corpse within seconds. I understood that the scene was supposed to represent some kind of primal horror. This was The Shining, after all. But the image of that decaying, cackling crone, her arms outstretched in desire toward the man who is backing away, has stayed with me for three decades, as a type of friend. She’s part baths-ghost, part mad-Naomi. She didn’t get the memo about being beyond wanting or being wanted. Or perhaps she just means to scare the shit out of him, which she does.

How much happier we should be,' she thought to herself sadly, 'if we never grew up!

Look for the darkened graveyards, the derelict hotels, the emptied and decaying old hospitals. Wait past midnight, and see what appears.

She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles; one of those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of those good and insupportable old maids who haunt the tables d'hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their manners of petrified vestals, their indescribable toilets and a certain odor of india-rubber which makes one believe that at night they are slipped into a rubber casing.

My brothers and I love A Christmas Story. It reminds us of ourselves when we were that age." "Your father didn't want to give you a BB shotgun because you might shoot your eye out?

Can you handle it?" "Hell yeah." "I mean..." Tom glanced around the tavern where pack members filled nearly every chair at the wooden tables. The room was humming with conversation. He leaned forward. "Because of the ghosts." "That don't exist." "Right." "Yeah, I can handle it.

The most easily deteriorated of all the moral qualities is the quality called 'conscience.' In one state of a man's mind, his conscience is the severest judge that can pass sentence on him. In another state, he and his conscience are on the best possible terms with each other in the comfortable capacity of accomplices.

Who’d make that shit up? Well,” she reasoned, “maybe Stephen King. But then it would involve murderous clowns or haunted hotels or . . . the end of the world. Have you read The Stand?” “Is this how Manson worked?” “Manson who?

You sure you don't want me to come over? We could make a snowman in the garden, or one in front of the hotel for the guests' arrival tomorrow. Or we could build snow forts and have a snowball fight. Surefire way to wear you out and make you sleepy. Then we could have cocoa with marshmallows on top. And I've been dying to have a piece of that seven-layer chocolate cake. I can't quit thinking about it.

but the truth was Eddie couldn’t have used the knife anyway—not then, anyway. He was staring into the doorway, hypnotized, as an aisle of Macy’s rushed forward—he was reminded again of The Shining, where you saw what the little boy was seeing as he rode his trike through the hallways of that haunted hotel.

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared;

He was staring into the doorway, hypnotized, as an aisle of Macy’s rushed forward—he was reminded again of The Shining, where you saw what the little boy was seeing as he rode his trike through the hallways of that haunted hotel. He remembered the little boy had seen this creepy pair of dead twins in one of those hallways. The

Used to be a resort hotel there, but it burned flat many a moon ago.” He drops his voice. “It was reputed to be haunted.

Well, sure,” Heather said. “Isn’t every hotel haunted since The Shining? People have probably died there, I bet.

Inspector had been in the library, and might possibly have

What lurking temptations to forbidden tenderness find their hiding-places in a woman's dressing-gown, when she is alone in her room at night! With

Find us a hotel. Something NOT HAUNTED. Can't emphasize this enough.

he had a strange sense of haunting a previous version of his life.

CHAPTER I

I wondered if Rhys had left Eldorra yet, and if he'd remember us ten, twenty, thirty years from now. I wondered if, when he saw me on TV or in a magazine, he would think about Costa Rica and storms in a gazebo and lazy afternoons in a hotel room, or if he'd flip past with nothing more than a spark of nostalgia. I wondered if I would haunt him as much as he haunted me.

The hotel was quaint, and their room had a little balcony over an atrium, which seemingly was home to several stray cats and had the stench of stale urine. Looking down, Lilac felt faint. The hairs on the back of her neck were erect. Sensing a haunting presence in the atrium below her, she quickly stepped back inside and closed the balcony windows to shut out the unwelcoming energy.

Bir zamanlar bizi birbirimize bağlayan o bağ tamamıyla koptu mu? Sanki birbirimizi hiç tanımamışız ve sevmemişiz gibi onun yazgısını, iyisiyle kötüsüyle, hiçbir şekilde paylaşamayacak mıyım artık ben?

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that’s why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon. But

The idea behind both concepts is that there must be an accounting, a ledger in the hearts and histories of a family. As if accepting a sum or taking a life will fill the void of the loss of a loved one." "It can't fill the void, but it can make things even," Adam said. "No. It does not. What you get is a deficit of two." "Then both are at an equal loss." Adam took a deep drag on his beer. "And how does this loss serve the memory of the loved one?" "It doesn't ... [v]engeance is selfish," Adam continued. "I've never tried to hide that." "Ah," Philip said. "Now we get to the heart of it. Adam, here is my question for you. Would you trade your claim to vengeance to set your brother free?" Talia watched the muscle twitch in Adam's jaw. It was a hard question, an impossible, painful question, especially after learning that Jacob had chosen his current state. Jacob had chosen to take the lives of his parents. He had reduced Adam's world to a haunted hotel with a group of mad scientists. Maybe she should say something. Change the subject. Seen any naked pictures of me today?

And in time we may remember, collecting every little memory, all the bits and pieces, into a larger memory, rebuilding a great layered and labyrinthine, now imagined, international hotel of many rooms, the urban experiment of a homeless community built to house the needs of temporary lives. And for what? To resist death and dementia. To haunt a disappearing landscape. To forever embed this geography with our visions and voices. To kiss the past and you good-bye, leaving the indelible spit of our DNA on still moist lips. Sweet. Sour. Salty. Bitter.

Tüm ahlaki niteliklerin içinde en kolay çürümeye uğrayanı ''vicdanlılık'' denilen niteliktir. İnsanın ruh hâline bağlı olarak vicdanı, kimi zaman ona ceza kesebilecek en sert yargıç olur. Kimi zamansa rahatlıkla suç ortakları sıfatıyla hareket edebilen bu ikilinin arasından su sızmaz.

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.

The facts are nothing,' she rejoined. 'I have only my own impressions to confess—and you will very likely think me a fanciful fool when you hear what they are. No matter. I will do my best to content you—I will begin with the facts that you want. Take my word for it, they won't do much to help you.

Mr. Troy was not only a man of learning and experience in his profession—he was also a man who had seen something of society at home and abroad. He possessed a keen eye for character, a quaint humour, and a kindly nature which had not been deteriorated even by a lawyer's professional experience of mankind. With

What's your name?" I ask again. We hover over the device, then a word pops up on the screen, a digitized voice announcing it for us. "Little." Hayden squints, jaw hanging slack, trying to find some hidden meaning. "Little. Oh my God, there's a little girl that's reported to haunt this hotel." "Bitch," the device snaps. His gaze lifts to mine, then back at the Ovilus, and then back at me. "Did that ghost call me a bitch?" I scratch my head. "It might've been talking about me. It did say little. You're kinda large." Hayden frowns at the device. "That's derogatory. It's not nice to call a woman a bitch." "Ass," it corrects.

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, that I didn't know who I was...I was far away from home haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared, I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost...I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then that strange afternoon. But I had to get going and stop moaning, so I picked up my bag, said so long to the old hotelkeeper sitting by his spittoon, and went to eat.

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.

Redrum by Stewart Stafford A Winter's tale of horrors profound, The haunted hotel's dark tapestry, Supreme isolation's moonscape snowbound, A father gripped by homicidal history. He sought to write, heal, absolve sins, Overlooked the hotel’s Redrum plans, Vomiting up daymares of phantom twins, His mind possessed by unseen hands. Room Two Three Seven, malevolent, Forbidden to enter its dark hole, Where ageless ladies bathed decadent, Luring caretakers to an adulterer's role. His wife and son sensed the danger, A bloody elevator with nowhere to run, A father's warpath with axe and anger, He became the monster, the devil's son. It might horrify 42 ways from Sunday, Only his shining son grasped the fact, May as well be across the galaxy, As in a labyrinth with that maniac. He failed to kill, he froze, met his fate, The hotel consumed his spirit as its own, Purgatorial torture in damnation's bait, He smiled in the photo, eternally alone. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

It seemed that Trump couldn’t spend fast enough. In 1988, he had paid $365 million to buy airplanes and routes from Eastern Airlines, which he turned into a Northeastern shuttle service. And he shelled out $407 million for the Plaza Hotel, the iconic château-style building across from Manhattan’s Central Park. In both cases, he borrowed most of the money, and analysts said he overpaid. The purchases loaded him up with debt at the same time he was ramping up his gambling empire by the boardwalk, and both moves would come to haunt him. To

As for denying the existence of fairies, good and bad, you have to be blind not to see them. They are everywhere, and naturally I have links of affection or dislike with all of them. The wealthy, spendthrift ones squander fortunes in Venice or Monte Carlo: fabulous, ageless women whose birthdays and incomes and origins nobody knows, putting charms on roulette wheels for the dubious pleasure of seeing the same number come up more often than it ought. There they sit, puffing smoke from long cigarette-holders, raking in the chips, and looking bored. Others spend the hours of darkness hanging their apartments in Paris or New York with Gothic tapestries, hitherto unrecorded, that drive the art-dealers demented-gorgeous tapestries kept hidden away in massive chests beneath deserted abbeys and castles since their own belle epoque in the Middle Ages. Some stick to their original line of country, agitating tables at seances or organizing the excitement in haunted houses; some perform kind deeds, but in a capricious and uncertain manner that frequently goes wrong, And then there are the amorous fairies, who never give up. They were to be seen fluttering through the Val Sans Retour in the forest of Broceliande, where Morgan la Fee concealed the handsome knight Guyomar and many lost lovers besides, or over the Isle of Avallon where the young knight Lanval lived happily with a fairy who had stolen him away. Now wrinkled with age, the amorous ones contrive to lure young men on the make who, immaculately tailored and bedecked with baubles from Cartier, escort them through the vestibules of international hotels. Yet other fairies, more studious and respectable, devote themselves to science, whirring and breathing above tired inventors and inspiring original ideas-though lately the unimaginable numbers,the formulae and the electronics, tend to overwhelm them. The scarcely comprehensible discoveries multiply around them and shake a world that is not theirs any more, that slips through their immaterial fingers. And so it goes on-all sorts and conditions of fairies, whispering together, purring to themselves, unnoticed on the impercipient earth. And I am one of them.

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was-I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.

The Pantheons made themselves apparent in the blink of an eye; perhaps less. At one instant the planet was a place of faith, doubt, and godlessness, the next there was room for none of these. Who needed faith when the senses confirmed all? As for doubt and godlessness, they were absurdities now that every deity that had ever appeared in human consciousness (and some several hundred thousand who had never made it) had manifested themselves. The Coming was indiscriminate; it made no distinction between great divinities and small. There were vast and transformative powers abroad, deities that brought with them fleets of angelic vehicles and all manner of divine paraphernalia, but there were also threadbare local gods, guardians of painted rocks, spirits of bamboo groves; presences that healed sores and brought lovers, demons who haunted empty roads and forsaken hotels. A world of yearning and need was suddenly a place of surfeit; and the end of mankind began, for there was nothing left invisible, or unknowable, and therefore nothing left to hope for or desire.

With an obscure hesitation one steps into the day and its frame and its costume. Between the puzzlement and its summary abandonment, between the folds of waking consciousness and their subsequent limitation, is a possible city. Solitude, hotels, aging, love, hormones, alcohol, illness – these drifting experiences open it a little. Sometimes prolonged reading holds it ajar. Another’s style of consciousness inflects one’s own; an odd syntactic manner, a texture of embellishment, pause. A new mode of rest. I can feel physiologically haunted by a style. It’s why I read ideally, for the structured liberation from the personal, yet the impersonal inflection can persist outside the text, beyond the passion of readerly empathy, a most satisfying transgression that arrives only inadvertently, never by force of intention. As if seized by a fateful kinship, against all the odds of sociology, the reader psychically assumes the cadence of the text. She sheds herself. This description tends towards a psychological interpretation of linguistics, but the experience is also spatial. I used to drive home from my lover’s apartment at 2 a.m., 3 a.m. This was Vancouver in 1995. A zone of light-industrial neglect separated our two neighbourhoods. Between them the stretched-out city felt abandoned. My residual excitement and relaxation would extend outwards from my body and the speeding car, towards the dilapidated warehouses, the shut storefronts, the distant container yards, the dark exercise studios, the pools of sulphur light, towards a low-key dereliction. I would feel pretty much free. I was a driver, not a pronoun, not a being with breasts and anguish. I was neither with the lover nor alone. I was suspended in a nonchalance. My cells were at ease. I doted on nothing.

Texas Has One of America’s Most Haunted Hotels Do you want to have a sleepover with some spirits? If so, then you might want to take a trip to Austin. The Driskill Hotel in Austin is believed to be one of the most haunted hotels in the entire United States! In fact, the hotel is so well-known for being haunted that the hit song “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man”, by Concrete Blonde, was written about it.

Haunted Encounters television series, filmed before Elisa Lam’s death, says, “There’s a tremendous amount of fatalities here at the Cecil hotel. Someone has literally died in every room. In room 1121 there have been many reports of guests checked into this room feeling as if they’re being physically strangled – and checking out! The things that are down in this basement are extremely powerful – they’re watching us. The basement is coming alive around us. Something big moved over there!” Perhaps

She haunted many a low resort, Round the grimy road of Tottenham Court. She flitted around the no man’s land From The Rising Sun to The Friend At Hand And the postman sighed as he scratched his head You really would have thought she ought to be dead And who would ever suppose that that Was Grizabella The Glamour Cat. And that was not all. There was a letter from Tom Eliot to his publisher Geoffrey Faber about an event which brought all the Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats together who then ascended to the “Heaviside Layer” in a great big air balloon. There was even a couplet to go with it: “Up, up, up, past the Russell Hotel, / Up, up, up, to the Heaviside Layer.” So Eliot himself had an idea for a bigger structure for these poems, very vague, but it was there. I knew then that I had the bare bones of a stage musical. Most importantly Grizabella the Glamour Cat gave me a tragic character, a character who you would really care about. I asked Cameron and Gillie to join Valerie and Matthew, and the excitement was tangible. There were other poems too, the story of a parrot called Billy McCaw, who lived on the

She haunted many a low resort, Round the grimy road of Tottenham Court. She flitted around the no man’s land From The Rising Sun to The Friend At Hand And the postman sighed as he scratched his head You really would have thought she ought to be dead And who would ever suppose that that Was Grizabella The Glamour Cat. And that was not all. There was a letter from Tom Eliot to his publisher Geoffrey Faber about an event which brought all the Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats together who then ascended to the “Heaviside Layer” in a great big air balloon. There was even a couplet to go with it: “Up, up, up, past the Russell Hotel, / Up, up, up, to the Heaviside Layer.” So Eliot himself had an idea for a bigger structure for these poems, very vague, but it was there. I knew then that I had the bare bones of a stage musical. Most importantly Grizabella the Glamour Cat gave me a tragic character, a character who you would really care about. I asked Cameron and Gillie to join Valerie and Matthew, and the excitement was tangible. There were other poems too, the story of a parrot called Billy McCaw, who lived on the bar of an East End pub. There was the saga of a Yorkshire terrier called Little Tom Pollicle which was apparently Eliot’s nickname, and a long poem about a man in white spats who meets a casual diner in a pub called the Princess Louise and starts talking about “this’s and thats and Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.” I asked Valerie what the words “Pollicle” and “Jellicle” meant. She explained it was Eliot’s private joke about how the British upper class slurred the words “poor little dogs” and “dear little cats.” She also revealed that Eliot intended the “Princess Louise” poem, as we came to call it, to be the preface of a book about dogs and cats, but in the end cats prevailed. “The Awefull Battle of the

Tourists enter Tehran from the south on a carriageway built by order of the Shah. On the city’s outskirts they pass through the green belt he envisioned would protect Tehran from the twin scourges of desert wind and dust. In the central city visitors pass by the government ministries, hospitals, universities, schools, concert halls, monuments, bridges, sports complexes, hotels, museums, galleries, and gleaming underground metro that were among his many pet projects. … He championed the social welfare state that today provides Iranians with access to state-run health care and education. He raised the scholarship money that allowed hundreds of thousands of Iranian university students, including many luminaries of the Islamic Republic, to study abroad at leading American and European universities. The Shah ordered the fighter jets that made Iran’s air force the most powerful in southwestern Asia. He established the first national parks and state forests and ordered strict water, animal, and conservation measures. Perhaps it is no surprise that Iran today has the look and feel of a haunted house. The man who built modern Iran is nowhere to be seen but his presence is felt everywhere. The revolutionaries who replaced the Shah may not like to hear it, but Iran today is as much his country as it is theirs.

Victor. He

Many books and movies had in their plots some echoes of my secret experiences with Flora. Places haunted by unquiet Indians were standard. Hotels were disturbed by Indians whose bones lay underneath the basements and floors -- a neat psychic excavation of American unease with its brutal history.

Page 3: My family is part of the Philippines’ tiny but entrepreneurial, economically powerful Chinese minority. Just 1 percent of the population, Chinese Filipinos control as much as 60 percent of the private economy, including the country’s four major airlines and almost all of the country’s banks, hotels, shopping malls, and major conglomerates. ... Since my aunt’s murder, one childhood memory keeps haunting me. I was eight, staying at my family’s splendid hacienda-style house in Manila. It was before dawn, still dark. Wide awake, I decided to get a drink from the kitchen. I must have gone down an extra flight of stairs, because I literally stumbled onto six male bodies. I had found the male servants’ quarters. My family’s houseboys, gardeners, and chauffeurs—I sometimes imagine that Nilo Abique [the chauffeur that murdered her aunt] was among those men—were sleeping on mats on a dirt floor. The place stank of sweat and urine. I was horrified. Later that day I mentioned the incident to my Aunt Leona, who laughed affectionately and explained that the servants—there were perhaps twenty living on the premises, all ethnic Filipinos—were fortunate to be working for our family. If not for their positions, they would be living among rats and open sewers without even a roof over their heads. A Filipino maid then walked in; I remember that she had a bowl of food for my aunt’s Pekingese. My aunt took the bowl but kept talking as if the maid were not there. The Filipinos, she continued—in Chinese, but plainly not caring whether the maid understood or not—were lazy and unintelligent and didn’t really want to do much else. If they didn’t like working for us, they were free to leave any time. After all, my aunt said, they were employees, not slaves.

All the hotels are haunted by someone or other. You just have to pick the one with the ghosts that suit you.

Dean bought him a couple years ago at some antique auction,” I explain. “The listing said he was haunted, so Dean thought it would be hilarious to get the doll for Tuck’s daughter, who was, like, a baby at the time. Sabrina lost her shit, so she waited till Dean and Allie were in town a couple months later and paid off someone at their hotel to leave the doll on Dean’s pillow.” Grace giggles. “Allie said he screamed like a little girl when he turned on the light and saw Alexander there.

IF YOU LOOK OVER THERE on your left, you’ll see the Don CeSar Hotel. It’s the second most haunted building in all of Florida,” the taxi driver declared proudly, as if he, personally,

The music of The Eagles calms you down with that gusto to listen to it the more. The day rolls on towards the evening, when a soft song like Tequila Sunrise blends with the lustre of the setting sun to reverse the seated clover that assuages depressions. Their song Hotel California is like an avalanche that haunts spectres that intend to haunt.

The dying mall has attracted some odd tenants, such as a satellite branch of the public library and an office of the State Attorney General's Child Predator Unit. As malls die across the country, we'll see many kinds of creative repurposing. Already, there are churches and casinos inside half-dead malls, so why not massage parlors, detox centers, transient hotels, haunted houses, prisons, petting zoos or putt-putt golf courses (covering the entire mall)? Leaving Santee, Chuck and I wandered into the food court, where only three of twelve restaurant slots were still occupied. On the back wall of this forlorn and silent space was a mural put up by Boscov, the mall's main tenant. Titled "B part of your community", it reads: KINDNESS COUNTS / PLANT A TREE / MAKE A DONATION / HELP A NEIGHBOR / VISIT THE ELDERLY / HOPE / ADOPT A PET / DRIVE A HYBRID / PICK UP THE TRASH / VOLUNTEER / CONSERVE ENERGY / RECYCLE / JOIN SOMETHING / PAINT A MURAL / HUG SOMEONE / SMILE / DRINK FILTERED WATER / GIVE YOUR TIME / USE SOLAR ENERGY / FEED THE HUNGRY / ORGANIZE A FUNDRAISER / CREATE AWARENESS / FIX A PLAYGROUND/ START A CLUB / BABYSIT These empty recommendations are about as effective as "Just Say No", I'm afraid. As the CIA pushed drugs, the first lady chirped, "Just say no!". And since everything in the culture, car, iPad, iPhone, television, internet, Facebook, Twitter and shopping mall, etc., is designed to remove you from your immediate surroundings, it will take more than cutesy suggestions on walls to rebuild communities. Also, the worse the neighborhoods or contexts, the more hopeful and positive the slogans. Starved of solutions, we shall eat slogans.

He would not want to sound like a haunted man; he would not want to sound as though he was calling from a welfare hotel, years too late, to say Yes, that was a baby we had together, it would have been a baby. For he could not help now but recall the doctor explaining about that child, a boy, who had appeared so mysteriously perfect in the ultrasound. Transparent, he had looked, and gelatinous, all soft head and quick heart; but he would have, in being born, broken every bone in his body.

Now, years later, he had been commissioned to fashion pictures with sugar water and dyes, a holiday mural. He had risen into something he could do, he had been recognized, and those years spent enduring his father's impatience seemed far away. He would do it for number 98,761,580, his love whose hand he held, cold as it was, who had lain beside him in the tunnels, in the filth. What had haunted him was the thought of her lovely body wasting away. It had torn at his eyes, his throat. It had taken away his faith. He painted a band of sugar on the walls of the hotel, the mural reflecting the city back to itself - the deep green park, the holiday windows, lovers under golden angels, flowers spilling out of markets in December, a resurrected skyscraper, a choir of variegated faces singing in front of a red door of a dark church, the homeless - not swept away, not forgotten - their realities on their faces, hands, hair. It was not a Rockwell. There were a few artists, subcontractors, who kept trying to abscond with the project, to make it what it wasn't for the sake of something they likened to a good make-believe before bed. -- 'A Potter's Field

Then came Dani’s turn to read a question. “‘Who’s in charge in the bedroom?’” Much to the group’s amusement, none of them got a match, and Sean didn’t think they would either as he held up his notepad. “‘I am, since I carry the big stick.’” Emma read hers with a remarkably straight face. “‘Sean, because he has a magic penis.’” “Wow. Um…so Sean and Emma have a point,” Dani said as the men nearly pissed themselves laughing. No way in hell was he leaving that unpunished, and he winked at Emma when Kevin read the next question. “‘Where’s the kinkiest place you’ve had sex?’” The fact that Joe and Keri had done the dirty deed on the back of his ATV led to a few questions about the logistics of that, but then it was Emma’s turn. “‘In bed, because Sean has no imagination.’” Roger threw an embarrassed wince his way, but his cousins weren’t shy about laughing their asses off. Sean just shrugged and held up his notepad. “In the car in the mall parking lot. Emma’s lying because she doesn’t want anybody to know being watched turns her on.” Her jaw dropped, but she recovered quickly and gave him a sweet smile that didn’t jibe with the “you are so going to get it” look in her eyes. Beth asked the next question. “‘Women, where does your man secretly dream of having sex?’” Keri knew Joe wanted to have sex in the reportedly very haunted Stanley Hotel, from King’s The Shining. Dani claimed Roger wanted to do the deed on a Caribbean beach, but he said that was her fantasy and that his was to have sex in an igloo. No amount of heckling would get him to say why. And when it came to Kevin, even Sean knew he dreamed of getting laid on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park. Then, God help him, it was Emma’s turn to show her answer. “‘In a Burger King bathroom.’” The room felt silent until Dani said, “Ew. Really?” “No, not really,” Sean growled. “Really,” Emma said over him. “He knows that’s the only way he can slip me a whopper.” As the room erupted in laughter, Sean knew humor was the only way they’d get through the evening with their secret intact, but he didn’t find that one very funny, himself. It was the final answer that really did him in, though. The question: “If your sex had a motto, what would it be?” Joe and Keri’s was, not surprisingly, Don’t wake the baby Kevin and Beth wrote, Better than chocolate cake, whatever that was supposed to mean. Dani wrote, Gets better with time, like fine wine, and Roger wrote, Like cheese, the older you get, the better it is, which led to a powwow about whether or not to give them a point. They probably would have gotten it if they weren’t tied with Keri and Joe, who took competitive to a cutthroat level. When they all looked at Sean, he groaned and turned his paper around. They’d lost any chance of winning way back, but he was already dreading what the smart-ass he wasn’t really engaged to had written down. “‘She’s the boss.’” The look Emma gave him as she slowly turned the notepad around gave him advance warning she was about to lay down the royal flush in this little game they’d been playing. “Size really doesn’t matter,” she said in what sounded to him like a really loud voice. Before he could say anything—and he had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth, but he had to say something--Cat appeared at the top of the stairs. “I hate to break up the party,” she said, “but it’s getting late, so we’re calling it a night.” Maybe Cat was, but Sean was just getting started.

Laurel returned to CJ's bedroom. "Do you want me to remove your clothes?" "Hell, yeah," he said, and the growly expression immediately vanished.

He looked at his wife. She had turned her back on him and moved a few steps away, perhaps embarrassed that she'd lost her temper, perhaps just giving his a chance to cool. She was bent over the baby, who was finally — thank God — beginning to quiet, her piercing screams fading to choking, hiccupping sobs. Gareth raked a hand through his hair, trying to think, trying to steady himself. Then, leading Crusader, he came up behind her. "Juliet?" She didn't turn, and Gareth was suddenly filled with shame. Shame at the way he'd behaved in front of her. Shame that he was so unprepared to deal with this situation. And shame that he had regretted, even for a moment, that he'd married her and now had full responsibility for both her and Charlotte. Responsibility. 'Sdeath, it was the worst word in the entire English language. "Juliet."  She still did not turn around. Her head was bent, and he could just see the pale curve of her nape beneath the upsweep of dark hair. Gareth swallowed — hard. Then, bowing his head, he said awkwardly, "My apologies. Perry's right, you know. I've got a temper, and sometimes it gets away from me." She turned then and gave him a level, unforgiving stare. "I don't mind your temper, Gareth. What I do mind is the fact that we don't seem to have a place to stay tonight. I suspect we don't have a place to stay tomorrow night, either, let alone next week, next month, or next year." He shrugged. "We can go to a hotel or something." "Yes, and how long will our money last if we live like that?" He flushed and looked away. "Didn't you even think about any of this before you asked to marry me and took on the responsibility of caring for us?" "Juliet, please." She looked suddenly weary. And disgusted. "No, I didn't think so." And now she was moving away again, as though she couldn't bear to be near him, much less look at him. "Juliet!" He swore and hurried after her, Crusader trotting behind him. This scrape was getting worse by the moment. "Juliet, please —" "I wish to be alone for a few minutes, Gareth. I need to think." "Everything will turn out just fine, I'm sure of it!" "I'm glad that one of us is." He picked up his pace. "Look, I know you're angry with me, but I am rather new at this husband-stuff. I'll get better at it. Just takes a bit of practice, you know? Why, even Charles would surely have made a few mistakes along the way —" She kept walking. "I doubt it." "I beg your pardon?" "I said, I doubt it." He halted in his tracks, Crusader's broad head crashing into his shoulder blades as he watched her walk away. The words had cut deeply, and he could think of nothing to say in his defense. The truth was, of course, that the incomparable Charles probably wouldn't have made any mistakes. She took a few more steps before she, too, paused. Her shoulders slumped, and she gave a heavy, tired sigh. She stood there for a moment, her back to him as though she was fighting some inner battle, and then, slowly, she turned and faced him, her face haunted by sadness. "That was unfair. I'm sorry." He

Mrs Hargreaves liked her job and she liked the Hoopers. As far as she was concerned there was far too much twaddle being talked about Glade Hall, by people with too much time on their hands. “Over fertile imaginations.” She’d told the new head gardener. Some of the locals had worked for the hotel and told stories of seeing shadows around the grounds, when the light was just right. As if shadows could hurt anyone ! It was all twaddle and nonsense.

When he would steal a kiss from her, it always took her breath away. No one kissed like Rick. No other man was able to make her lose all conception of time when he kissed her. That was not all. Rick was fun to work with and made her laugh. As a partner, he had talents that she desperately needed in her business. He was a cunning and crafty man, and his talents helped in solving many cases.

As they passed the giant saguaro cacti, Amelia knew they were getting close to home. They were magnificent, standing like humungous pitchforks in the middle of the desert. To her, it represented the American West... Amelia noticed Sam in the distance. He seemed intrigued by the Teddy Bear Chollas. Sam was not originally from Arizona, so he seemed enchanted by the fuzzy little cactus. As he reached toward it, Amelia yelled, "Stop! No! Don't touch that, Sam!" But it was too late. The little razor sharp needles seemed to jump toward his finger...

Amelia laughed and then teased him with a kiss on the cheek. He shook his head. "Nah! Not good enough." Knowing what he really wanted, she kissed him lightly on the lips. Rick smiled. "Now that's more like it." Without hesitation, he pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers, giving her a kiss to remember... a kiss that took her breath away... a kiss that made her lips tingle. As his hands did their magic, caressing her back with tenderness, Amelia sighed. When he finally released her lips, Rick tenderly cradled her face in his hands and said, "Now that's what I call the perfect thank you." He kissed her sweet lips again. "Just remember that next time." Amelia blinked and said breathlessly, "I'll try to remember that.

Rick gave a mischievous grin. "We're going to add a few things to that bucket list of yours, Amelia. You're going to have a snowball fight, make a snow angel, and go sleigh riding.

Estes Park was set in a valley surrounded by the Rocky Mountain National Park.... When I visited a few years ago, there were actually elk grazing on the golf course." "Are you serious?" "Hey, every year in October they have an Elk Festival. That's why I came here. I wanted to see it 'cause it was on my bucket list." "An Elk Festival?" Amelia laughed. "You have the most awesome things on your bucket list. Mine seem boring compared to yours." Amelia raised her brow curiously. "What was the festival like?" "It was awesome. They had an elk bugling contest, elk seminars, Native American music, dancing and storytelling. They even had bus tours that took you to see the elk grazing in the fields. It was great. I loved it." "Wait a minute," said Amelia as she tilted her head to one side. "What's an elk bugling contest?" Rick grinned. "It's the call of the elk. Anyone can compete. Whoever sounds the most like an elk wins. You can use a horn or just your own voice. When I was there, the man who won used his voice. It was really something." Amelia's eyes widened with curiosity. "How did he do it? What does it sounds like?" Rick chuckled. "Well... the call starts out with deep rich tones. Then it quickly rises to a high-pitched squealing sound and immediately drops down to a bunch of grunts.

Maybe we should stay another night," said Amelia... Rick nodded. "You're right. Sounds good to me." He then winked at her and said with a teasing glint in his eyes, "We can both sleep in this bed to save money." He then patted the space beside him. Amelia laughed and shook her head. "In your dreams!" Rick chuckled. "Yeah. In my dreams is right.

Meanwhile, Mabel waited outside the Prince of Wales Hotel on Lord Street. She'd perched her bony bottom on the pointed-top wall that ran alongside it, opposite the barbershop. She could smell the sweet, crisp freshness that came with springtime as the sun had finally managed to fight its way through the cloud cover. Unfortunately, though, it seemed that no matter where in this town she went, memories of her father haunted her. As she sat on the wall, her feet turned inwards and, with a dull numbness growing in her tailbone, she closed her eyes. In her mind, she opened them again to find that she was at least ten years younger. Her feet dangled off the edge of the wall in scuffed indigo leather shoes, with a shiny brass buckle glinting in the light from the oil street lamps. The sky was a moody blue, signalling the end of the day and the start of the night. Her father stood beside her, a thick cigarette held between his chapped lips and his hands in his pockets. His friends from work surrounded her, all laughing and chatting. She could see her father speaking, though all she could hear was a muted grumble. Even in her imagination, she couldn't quite picture how he spoke. The only sounds she could place were the short groans he'd make as he stood up from his chair or the wheeze that followed his laughter. With the sad realisation that she had lost all memory of her father's voice, she opened her eyes once more.

It will follow you through oceans and across land and haunt your nightmares. It won’t leave you until it’s revenge is fulfilled.