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I delight in what I fear.

Shirley Jackson

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Shirley Jackson
Age: 48 †
Born: 1916
Born: December 14
Died: 1965
Died: September 8
Author
Journalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Shirley Hardie Jackson
Delight
Fear

More quotes by Shirley Jackson

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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.
Shirley Jackson
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The idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have to live it with a home and a husband and children, none of whom would dream of following one another docilely.
Shirley Jackson
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I can't help it when people are frightened, says Merricat. I always want to frighten them more.
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Wear your boots if you wander today
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I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.
Shirley Jackson
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You will be wondering about that sugar bowl, I imagine, is it still in use? You are wondering, has it been cleaned? You may very well ask, was it thoroughly washed?
Shirley Jackson
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Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.
Shirley Jackson
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I really think I shall commence chapter forty-four, he said, patting his hands together. I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie. Constance, my dear? Yes, Uncle Julian? I am going to say that my wife was a beautiful woman.
Shirley Jackson
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We eat the year away. We eat the spring and the summer and the fall. We wait for something to grow and then we eat it.
Shirley Jackson
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Materializations are often best produced in rooms where there are books. I cannot think of any time when materialization was in any way hampered by the presence of books.
Shirley Jackson
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February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer.
Shirley Jackson
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We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
Shirley Jackson
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I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.
Shirley Jackson
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I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains no pertinent facts.
Shirley Jackson
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For plain and fancy worrying, give me a new mother every time.
Shirley Jackson
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All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...
Shirley Jackson
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It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
Shirley Jackson
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I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.
Shirley Jackson
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He is altogether selfish, she thought in some surprise, the only man I have ever sat and talked to alone, and I am impatient he is simply not very interesting.
Shirley Jackson
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It is only with the eyes open that a corporeal form returns, and assembles itself firmly around the hard core of sight.
Shirley Jackson