Quotes from Shirley Jackson

I am tired of writing dainty little biographical things that pretend that I am a trim little housewife ... I live in a dank old place with a ghost.

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 enriched and delighted by the stories I wrote.

Look. There's only one of me, and it's all I've got. I hate seeing myself dissolve and slip and separate so that I'm living in one half, my mind, and I see the other half of me helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it, but I know I'm not really going to be hurt and yet time is so long and even a second goes on and on and I could stand any of it if I could only surrender—

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 cup of stars again; dont't do it.

Hill House, not sane, stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. 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.

An odd thought crossed her mind: she would pick up the heavy glass ashtray and smash her husband over the head with it.

It is not possible, I frequently think, to walk down the street as fast as you can and kick yourself at the same time.

Sometimes the people who knock you down never turn once to look.

at the back of her mind the thoroughly female conviction that the best way to soothe a troubled mind is to put on comfortable shoes.

It is a longing so intense that it creates what it desires, it cannot endure any touch of correction; it is, as I say, unspeakable.

I don't like the younger sister," Theodora said. "First she stole her sister's lover, and then she tried to steal her sister's dishes. No, I don't like her.

the gap between the poetry she wrote and the poetry she contained was, for Natalie, something unsolvable.

Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.

Although she would sooner have given up thinking than eating, she resented being pushed into depriving herself of either.

We are all measured, good or evil, by the wrong we do to others;

The Amanita phalloides... holds three different poisons. There is amanitin, which works slowly and is most potent. There is phalloidin, which acts at once, and there is phallin, which dissolves red corpuscles, although it is the least potent. The first symptoms do not appear until seven to twelve hours after eating, in some cases not before twenty-four or even forty hours. The symptoms begin with violent stomach pains, cold sweat, vomiting-

Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply humorous look on a watching person; even a mischievous little chimney, or a dormer like a dimple, can catch up a beholder with a sense of fellowship;

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.

the houses described in Leviticus as 'leprous,' tsaraas, or Homer's phrase for the underworld: aidao domos, the house of Hades; I need not remind you, I think, that the concept of certain houses as unclean or forbidden—perhaps sacred—is as old as the mind of man.

I will go on my horse and bring you cinnamon and thyme, emeralds and clove, cloth of gold and cabbages. And rhubarb.

Say Morg--you mind if I use the rest of your bath salts? There's only a little left.

When I was a child, Theodora said lazily, '--many years ago,' Doctor, as you put it so tactfully--I was whipped for throwing a brick through a greenhouse roof. I remember I thought about if for a long time, remembering the whipping but remembering also the lovely crash, and after thinking about it very seriously I went out and did it again.

Imagine, always pretending to run a world. Always imitating the sort of people they think they might be if the world were the sort of world it isn't. Pretending to be words like 'normal' and 'wholesome' and 'honest' and 'decent' and 'self-respecting' and all the rest, when even the words aren't real. Imagine, being people.

Duty and conscience were, for Theodora, attributes which belonged properly to Girl Scouts.