Quotes from Shirley Jackson

It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, it is a place of contained ill will.

Eternal damnation is the lot of mankind; neither tears, nor reparation, can undo Man's heritage of sin.

insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it;

Every touch he made on the house must be erased.

I don't stay after I set out dinner," Mrs. Dudley went on. "Not after it begins to get dark. I leave before dark comes.

Looking up as she did immediately, she saw immeasurable space, traveling past the locked hands of the trees, past the large nodding implacable heads, up and into the silence of the sky, where the stars remained, indifferent.

She was well away from the city now, watching for the turning onto Route 39, that magic thread of road Dr. Montague had chosen for her, out of all the roads in the world, to bring her safely to him and to Hill House; no other road could lead her from where she was to where she wanted to be.

It's all my fault, anyway." That was her new way of thinking.

Around the house, my head deep in a pillowcase or the oven, my eyes focused on that supernatural neatness which the housewife sees somehow shadowing her familiar furniture, it was largely possible to disregard, or not-quite-hear, Sally, but in the car I was entirely what I believe is called a captive audience.

I think that an atmosphere like this one can find out the flaws and faults and weaknesses in all of us and break us apart in a matter of days.

don't let me, she hoped concretely, don't let me know too surely what he thinks of me.

to send me away." Why me, she wondered, why me? Am I the public conscience? Expected always to say in cold words what the rest of them are too arrogant to recognize? Am I supposed to be the weakest

Why don't you grow up by yourself?

have always liked the notion that the American twins were actually a poltergeist phenomenon; certainly poltergeists can overshadow any more interesting manifestation. Bad ghosts drive out good.

Gossip says she hanged herself from the turret on the tower, but when you have a house like Hill House with a tower and a turret, gossip would hardly allow you to hang yourself anywhere else. After

She could not remember ever being truly happy in her adult life; her years with her mother had been built up devotedly around small guilts and small reproaches, constant weariness, and unending despair.

Sing before breakfast you'll cry 'before night

No; it is over for me. It is too much, she thought, I will relinquish my possession of this self of mine, abdicate, give over willingly what I never wanted at all; whatever it wants of me it can have.

Let us have a little more brandy,' the doctor said, 'and I will tell you the story of Hill House.

at my age an hour's reading before bedtime is essential

Right?" he said. "I think we are all incredibly silly to stay. I think that an atmosphere like this one can find out the flaws and faults and weaknesses in all of us, and break us apart in a matter of days. We have only one defense, and that is running away. At least it can't follow us, can it? When we feel ourselves endangered we can leave, just as we came. And," he added dryly, "just as fast as we can go.

the sick voice inside her which whispered, Get away from here, get away.

You bring more light into this room than the window

Eleanor—"I plan to stay up and read for a while." "Are you still reading Pamela?" Eleanor asked the doctor. "Volume two. I have three volumes to go, and then I shall begin Clarissa Harlowe, I think. Perhaps Luke would care to borrow—" "No, thanks," Luke said hastily. "I have a suitcase full of mystery stories.