No, no, you have none of you any idea. This is all nonsense, fantasy, it is not like this. Nothing so blood-curdling and becreepered and crude - not so...so laughable. The truth is quite other, and altogether more terrible.
-- Arthur (Christmas Eve)

Importance: Hill includes this quote in order to build suspense. At this early point in the novel, the reader has no idea what is in store. This quote helps set the eerie tone and gloomy mood of the novel. In admonishing his children’s ghost stories, Arthur inadvertently reveals that he has suffered at the hands of the supernatural. This offhand confession throws his family off and entices the reader to look forward to the thrilling tale that is to come.

I had always known in my heart that the experience would never leave me… Like an old wound, it gave off a faint twinge now and again, but less and...
-- Arthur (Christmas Eve)