Page "The Great Divorce" Paragraph 5

Almost all of the ghosts choose to return instead to the grey town, giving various reasons and excuses.

Much of the interest of the book lies in the recognition it awakens of the plausibility and familiarity, along with the thinness and self-deception, of the excuses that the ghosts refuse to abandon, even though to do so would bring them to " reality " and " joy forevermore.