If you don’t believe in ghosts, you’ve never been to a family reunion.

Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) is best known for his epigrammatic “Pot-Shots”—wry, one- or two-sentence observations printed on postcards, posters, and in collections beginning in the late 1960s. This quip fits that trademark mode: a compact, joke-shaped aphorism that turns a familiar supernatural idea into social satire. Rather than referring to literal apparitions, it evokes the way family gatherings can feel haunted by the past—by deceased relatives, inherited stories, old grievances, and long-standing roles that reappear whenever the family reconvenes. The line circulated widely in quotation anthologies and on novelty items in the late 20th century, often attributed to Brilliant’s Pot-Shots output.

The humor hinges on redefining “ghosts” as the persistent presence of family history. At reunions, people often confront memories, reputations, and unresolved tensions that seem to “return” with uncanny force, as if the past were walking among the living. The quote also suggests that identity in families is partly spectral: relatives may see you as who you were years ago, not who you are now, and absent members can dominate conversation through reminiscence. Brilliant’s epigram compresses this into a single punchline, using the language of belief and the paranormal to capture the psychological and emotional hauntings that accompany kinship and tradition.