Quotes from Shirley Jackson

Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. It isn't fair, she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head.

I loathe writing autobiographical material because if it's dull no-one should have to read it anyway, and if it's interesting I should be using it for a story.

Hill House has an impressive list of tragedies connected with it, but then, most old houses have. People have to live and die somewhere, after all, and a house can hardly stand for eighty years without seeing some of its inhabitants die within its walls.

Name? the desk clerk said to me politely, her pencil poised. Name, I said vaguely. I remembered, and told her. Age? she asked. Sex? Occupation? Writer, I said. Housewife, she said. Writer, I said. I'll just put down housewife, she said.

Well, she asked, how do you gentlemen like living in a haunted house? It's perfectly fine, Luke said, perfectly fine. It gives me an excuse to have a drink in the middle of the night.

I wished they were all dead and I was walking on their bodies.

Sometimes, when it had been a hard day at school and the future looked unusually dark, Miss Matt would permit herself to cry luxuriously for half an hour; afterward she would wash her face, and dress and go out to some nice restaurant for dinner.

wherever she goes she will only find the same hell she was running away from.

Where did he go, your father?' 'Africa.' 'What for?' 'To shoot lions, of course.' 'What on Earth for ?' said Mrs. Willow blankly. 'Some people shoot lions,' the girl said pleasantly, 'and some people do not shoot lions. My father is one of the people who do.

she might never leave the road at all, but just hurry on and on until the wheels of the car were worn to nothing and she had come to the end of the world.

It's not the way it used to be... people ain't the way they used to be.

Little Natalie, never rest until you have uncovered your essential self. Remember that. Somewhere, deep inside you, hidden by all sorts of fears and worries and petty little thoughts, is a clean pure being made of radiant colours.

Do you always go where you're not wanted?" Eleanor smiled placidly. "I've never been wanted anywhere," she said.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

She was a stranger in a world of strangers and they were strangers she had left behind

I was already doing a lot of splendid research reading all the books about ghosts I could get hold of, and particularly true ghost stories - so much so that it became necessary for me to read a chapter of _Little Women_ every night before I turned out the light - and at the same time I was collecting pictures of houses, particularly odd houses, to see what I could find to make into a suitable haunted house.

If I am spared," he always said to Constance, "I will write the book myself. If not, see that my notes are entrusted to some worthy cynic who will not be too concerned with the truth.

It was the first genuinely shining day of summer, a time of year which brought Eleanor always to aching memories of her early childhood, when it seemed to be summer all the time; she could not remember a winter before father's death on a cold wet day.

They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.

Nothing," she said, "upsets me more than being hungry; I snarl and snap and burst into tears.

Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your little cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.

I have been found wanting, Natalie thought; I have made myself unnacceptable and am not worthy.

Perhaps someone had once hoped to lighten the air of the blue room in Hill House with a dainty wallpaper, not seeing how such a hope would evaporate in Hill House, leaving only the faintest hint of its existence, like an almost inaudible echo of sobbing far away...

We believed optimistically that Laurie was a reformed character. I told my husband, on the last day of Laurie's confinement, that actually one good scare like that could probably mark a child for life, and my husband pointed out that kids frequently have an instinctive desire to follow the good example rather than the bad, once they find out which is which. We agreed that a good moral background and thorough grounding in the Hardy Boys would always tell in the long run. (Arch-Criminal)