Emma

“Okay...' I hurried on. 'But why me?'
'You're a girl,' Lockwood called. 'Aren't you supposed to be more sensitive?'
'To emotions, yes. To nuances of human behavior. Not necessarily to secret passages in a wall.'
'Oh, it's much the same thing.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase

“Lockwood sat up awkwardly, adjusting his Bubble-Wrapped loops of chain. 'We're in good shape,' he said. 'We've lost the heavy duty chains and the stuff in the bags, but we've got our rapiers, iron, and silver seals. And we've found what we wanted now.'
I stared at the clean, calm surface of the door. 'Why couldn't it come after us? Ghosts can pass through walls.'
Lockwood shrugged. 'In some cases a Visitor is tied so completely to the room where it met its death that it no longer has any conception of there being any adjacent space at all. So...when we left its hunting ground, it was as if we ceased to exist, as if we ceased to be....'
I looked at him. 'You haven't really got a clue, have you?'
'No.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase

“Lockwood stepped aside, his boots crunching across the salt, to stand and study the paper beneath the light. No such luck with George; he came in close, his eyes bulging so much behind his spectacles, they almost pressed against the glass.
'I can't *believe* you did that, Lucy. You're crazy! *Purposefully* freeing a ghost!'
'It was an experiment,' I said. 'Why are you complaining? You're always messing about with that stupid jar of yours.'
'There's no comparison. I keep that ghost *in* in the jar. Anyway, it's scientific research. I do it under carefully controlled conditions.'
'Carefully controlled? I found it in the bathtub the other day!'
'That's right. I was testing the ghost's reaction to heat.'
'And to bubble bath? There were bubbles all over the jar. You put some nice soapy fragrance in that water, and...' I stared at him. 'Do you get in the tub with it, George?'
His face flushed. 'No, I do not. Not as a rule. I - I was saving time. I was just getting in myself when it occurred to me I could do a useful experiment about the resistance of ectoplasm to warmth. I wanted to see if it would contract...' He waved his hands wildly in the air. 'Wait! Why am I explaining myself to *you*? You just unleashed a ghost in our house!”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase

“It wasn't the body," he said. "I've seen worse things in our fridge.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Whispering Skull