Top 50 Darcy Coates Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Do not mistake hardheartedness for strength. To live in this world and to hold on to your humanity, your compassion, your joy – I believe that is strength. And more valuable than being callous enough that death never haunts you.”

— Darcy Coates

2. “Shoot for the moon. If you miss, you’ll die horribly in the void of space.”

— Darcy Coates

3. “Mistakes make us human; don’t torture yourself over a choice you made four years ago. If you think you were wrong, make a plan to change what you can. Action is good. Choices are good. But guilt on its own never fixed anyone’s problem.”

— Darcy Coates

4. “Regret will drag you down, smother you, kill you. You’ve got to face forward. Try your hardest. Do what you can to improve the world while you have the chance.”

— Darcy Coates

5. “C’mon. We can turn it into a fun game – What’s Scarier, The Basement Or The Attic?”

— Darcy Coates

6. “You may rule the world by day, but the creatures of the night demand their privacy.”

— Darcy Coates

7. “A thousand paper cuts given over a lifetime might be insignificant, but when none of them are allowed to heal, they fester into something awful.”

— Darcy Coates

8. “She’d said that life had sections, like walking through doors. People had to choose when to walk through them, but no one could see what the next room held until they were in it. Some new rooms were painful. Some were happy. Some seemingly had no purpose. But the fullest, happiest lives were lived by those who walked through many different doors, unafraid of what they would find.”

— Darcy Coates

9. “This is always the worst part of death. The people left behind have to suffer so much more.”

— Darcy Coates

10. “Regeneration followed after death. Growth required change. Life was a constant battle of give-and-take, a bittersweet tango that demanded full participation.”

— Darcy Coates

11. “She blinked, trying to recall the dream, but the effort was like trying to chase water while it soaked into the ground.”

— Darcy Coates

12. “This is a house that hasn’t seen a new soul in half a century. The walls are saturated with her; the floorboards are worn down from her feet; the very air continues to carry her presence after her death.”

— Darcy Coates

13. “Ghosts need energy to stay present, to stay powerful. They eat it like we eat food. Sometimes, they have their own energy; the more impactful or distressing the death, the stronger the energy their passing leaves behind.”

— Darcy Coates

14. “Beware the home that craves you, child. Your gift and your curse are the same. Beware the home that craves.”

— Darcy Coates

15. “Not for the first time, Tara wished she could read in the car without becoming sick.”

— Darcy Coates

16. “I’m going to be single my whole life. I’ll have twelve cats and live in a haunted house and be the happiest spinster you’ve ever met.”

— Darcy Coates

17. “The fluttering emotion in her chest was beaten and bleeding, but still, it lived.”

— Darcy Coates

18. “How do you even remember which ones you’ve read? Don’t they blend together after a while?” “Sure. But what does it matter if I forget a story after a month as long as I enjoy it while I’m reading it?”

— Darcy Coates

19. “What the hell’s wrong with this house?” I asked it. “Locked rooms, and now rooms without doors at all?” I made to turn.”

— Darcy Coates

20. “She hated being a burden. He never said or did anything to make her feel like one, but she knew what she was.”

— Darcy Coates

21. “At night, her parents put her to bed and told her to stay there until morning. You see, the girl and her family weren’t alone. Another family lived nearby. And just as the girl played during the day, the other family liked to play outside at night.”

— Darcy Coates

22. “Beneath that was another darker fear. That maybe she didn’t want to see clearly. That maybe there was something about the hallway that was hiding just outside of their lights, and she was better off not knowing it was there.”

— Darcy Coates

23. “She was desperately aware of how rare opportunities like this were. A house and a business, each worth more than all of her current possessions combined, had been handed to her. She felt achingly ungrateful for the way she was shirking them. Except that, sometimes, an unasked-for gift could easily begin to look like a burden.”

— Darcy Coates

24. “Then she looked at her phone and saw, to her horror, she hadn’t been hung up on after all. Her battery had died.”

— Darcy Coates

25. “Even if I get murdered, it’s still better than being homeless again.”

— Darcy Coates

26. “It turns out the real enemy is capitalism after all,” Zoe muttered. “That is so disgustingly typical.”

— Darcy Coates

27. “A spectre is an entity that can think – though often primitively – and react to changes to their surroundings. They may move from room to room and usually have some kind of impetus keeping them on earth. They’re the closest to the pop culture concept of ghosts. Imprints, on the other hand, are a small amount of energy left behind at the point of death. They’re not conscious. Most commonly, they replay their death, often at the same time each day or on the anniversary of when they died.”

— Darcy Coates

28. “Some things are special,” Witchety continued. “Keys to beloved places. The bones of an animal that never lived a day in captivity. Tiny gifts and unblemished flowers and stones that make you feel a particular way. They may not have much power on their own, but weave them together with care and they create a breathing tapestry. That’s what the Watcher is.” She lifted the talisman. “What this is. Things that are special enough to keep you safe. At least a little.”

— Darcy Coates

29. “The human mind couldn’t cope with looking at nothing for very long and, in sufficient darkness, quickly began to create its own images of what it thought belonged there.”

— Darcy Coates

30. “In her eyes, he’d never grown up. He was still a ten-year-old who needed hugs and biscuits when he scraped his knees, and wasn’t truly safe away from her watchful eye. He wished there was something he could say to give her comfort.”

— Darcy Coates

31. “She didn’t have friends.”

— Darcy Coates

32. “The house, despite being caked in opulence, felt hostile, as though she were unworthy of staying in it. As if it barely tolerated her. The judgement seeped out of the walls and rose through the floorboards. It bled resentment.”

— Darcy Coates

33. “Don’t let the house get to you. This is fine.”

— Darcy Coates

34. “It took a certain kind of person to appreciate a malevolent supernatural entity.”

— Darcy Coates

35. “For the first time in her life, she’d seen a corpse, and it had been her own.”

— Darcy Coates

36. “I wish I’d never started, but I cannot stop. Death is the next step. Heaven owes me no mercy, so I will make my own.”

— Darcy Coates

37. “Was that really blood sprayed over her chin? Adrienne looked back at the house as prickles ran over her arms. It had only been six or seven drops, but she was struggling to find any reasonable explanation for the red liquid.”

— Darcy Coates

38. “Death made an equal out of everyone.”

— Darcy Coates

39. “It will be fine. Go and season the door, just like regular people do all the time.”

— Darcy Coates

40. “Research,” Zoe said, lowering her camera. Her expression held unbridled delight. “I know this whole situation is straight-up horrendous for everyone else here, but if it’s any consolation, I’m having the time of my life.”

— Darcy Coates

41. “It must be nice to be a cat. No bills to pay. No difficult clients. No having to figure out how to say, “Send me my damn money!” in a pleasant way because if you’re rude they won’t hire you again and you can’t afford to lose any work.”

— Darcy Coates

42. “I hope it isn’t rude to ask, but is Witchety your real name?” “Sure, it’s real,” Witchety replied. “Might not be the one I got at birth, mind, but I’ve been called Witchety for so long now that it’s more my own than anything else.”

— Darcy Coates

43. “There was a woman. An old and contorted woman. And the moon was somehow important. But every other detail fled as soon as she reached for it.”

— Darcy Coates

44. “His shoulders sagged a fraction. “No one ever wants to make a blood pact. We could invoke ancient spirits to hold us to our vow instead. I have some necromancy books at home. But I have to hide them behind my calculus homework; otherwise, my mother finds them and throws them out.”

— Darcy Coates

45. “They weren’t all that different from her – teenagers who had found themselves classified as adults by virtue of too many birthdays and who were trying to fumble and bluff their way through the world without anyone realising how thoroughly underqualified they were.”

— Darcy Coates

46. “She’d had it all wrong. The bells in the house weren’t left over from some centuries-old staffing arrangement. And there weren’t levers inside the house to pull. The wires were connected to the fence. The bells were an alarm system.”

— Darcy Coates

47. “The massive grey tabby turned his sea-green eyes towards her and projected abject misery in the way only cats are capable of.”

— Darcy Coates

48. “You know what’s excessive? Dying because you were stupid.”

— Darcy Coates

49. “Rules: No strangers are allowed onto the property. Do not enter the tower. Do not leave the groundskeeper’s cottage between midnight and dawn. Draw your curtains. Keep the door locked. If you hear knocking, do not answer it.”

— Darcy Coates

50. “This is great timing. I don’t think I can practice anymore for today. I won’t say no to reading, though.”

— Darcy Coates