Quotes from Shirley Jackson

One of the most terrifying aspects of publishing stories and books is the realization that they are going to be read, and read by strangers. I had never fully realized this before, although I had of course in my imagination dwelt lovingly upon the thought of the millions and millions of people who were going to be uplifted

and consequently, while I can never be sentimental, I can never be great

I dislike all the beginnings of conversations where people ask one another as subtly as possible how old they are, and what their names are, and how they are feeling these days.

It's spring, you're young, you're lovely, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world.

Losing my temper will not help,' he said and gave the door a vicious kick.

Mr. Halloran had been crying, but this was not unusual; since he had been made to realize that he would not, now, be vouchsafed a second run at youth he cried easily and often.

Detesto scrivere pezzi autobiografici: se il materiale è noioso non bisognerebbe infliggerlo a nessuno, e se è interessante dovrei usarlo per un racconto.

Tell me something that only I will ever know, was perhaps what she wanted to ask him, or, What will you give me to remember you by? - or, even, Nothing of the least importance has ever belonged to me; can you help?

Losing my temper will not help, he said and gave the door a vicious kick.

When Jannie came home from school that afternoon she said that her teacher had put it into the class news that Jannie's mommy and daddy were going to get a new house and Jannie would walk to school instead of taking the bus.

Il lettore che fosse sconcertato dalle mie impacciate descrizioni dovrebbe solo provare a chiudere gli occhi per non più di due minuti e scoprirebbe che, tutt'a un tratto, egli non è più un essere umano solido, bensì una pura coscienza immersa in un mare di sensazioni sonore e tattili; è solo quando abbiamo gli occhi aperti che torna la forma corporea, costruendosi saldamente attorno al nocciolo duro della vista.

home seemed so far away that perhaps it did not exist at all.

And there were birds singing, and--oh, I wish I could remember, and make you all see how lovely it was!--and flowers, and everything was so gentle and warm and light; it is going to be so beautiful

Well I am here, I am at the heart, I have come through the maze--where is the secret I am to learn from my many agonies? Here I am, here I am, where is my reward? What have I earned, learned, spurned?

I am living on the moon, I told myself, I have little house all by myself on the moon.

The more haste, the less speed

Fancy was a liar. She had been with Aunt Fanny and dared not admit to running away. She had not been frightened, but she enjoyed teasing people weaker than herself. Not a servant, or an animal, or any child in the village near the house, would willingly go near her.

We had three more attics, but one of them was full of old lumber and bricks left over from the various additions that had been built onto the house, and one of them was full of bats, and the last could only be reached by climbing through a trapdoor in the ceiling of the next-to-the-last attic and even if I could get past the bats and through the lumber and bricks I did not think I could keep taking the baby up and down through a trapdoor.

It has always been my opinion that princesses are confined in towers only because they choose to stay confined, and the only dragon required to keep them there was their own desire to be kept.

We have got to get a bigger house," I said. "Don't be silly," my husband said, reading. "There is no bigger house." "A new house?" said Jannie. "Can I have a room of my own?" When I went down to the grocery the next morning the grocer said he heard we were thinking of moving.

The experiment with humanity is at an end, Aunt Fanny said. Splendid, Mrs. Halloran said, I was getting very tired of all of them.

There's no denying, for instance, that my clever Julia is a fool and my lovely Arabella is a—    Flirt, Mrs. Halloran said.    Well, I was going to say tart, but it's your house, after all.

this compound of creatures I call Me." Of

You all want the whole world to be changed so you will be different. But I don't suppose people get changed any by just a new world. And anyway that world isn't any more real than this one.