Daily Inspiration Quote by Curt Siodmak

Superstition here isn’t treated as a quirky personal habit; it’s framed as an infection. “Contagious” is the tell: Siodmak makes belief behave like a pathogen, spreading through proximity, panic, and social pressure rather than evidence. That word choice shifts blame away from solitary irrationality and onto environments that cultivate it. People don’t just “believe” superstitions in a vacuum; they catch them from families, institutions, headlines, and the ambient dread of uncertain times.

The second sentence tightens the screw. “Some people let it get the better of them” sounds almost polite, but it’s quietly accusatory. The phrasing implies a contest between reason and ritual, self-control and surrender. “Let” suggests agency, but also exhaustion: as if superstition wins when you’re tired, scared, or isolated enough to stop fighting. It’s a moral diagnosis dressed up as casual observation.

Coming from a novelist steeped in genre sensibilities (Siodmak’s name carries the shadow of mid-century science fiction and horror), the line reads like a warning label for mass psychology. Superstition becomes the narrative engine of fear: once the idea is loose in a community, it doesn’t need to be true to be lethal. Its power is social, not supernatural.

The intent, then, is less to mock believers than to spotlight how quickly irrational explanations become communal currency when reality feels unmanageable. In that sense, it’s not about ghosts; it’s about crowds.