Quote

I have always loved to use fear, to take it and comprehend it and make it work and consolidate a situation where I was afraid and take it whole and work from there.

Shirley Jackson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Make
Afraid
Always
Loved
Situation
Use
Fear
Take
Consolidate
Whole
Comprehend
Work
Scary

More quotes by Shirley Jackson

Image
I can't help it when people are frightened, says Merricat. I always want to frighten them more.
Shirley Jackson
Image
On the moon we have everything. Lettuce, and pumpkin pie and Amanita phalloides. We have cat-furred plants and horses dancing with their wings. All the locks are solid and tight, and there are no ghosts.
Shirley Jackson
Image
I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.
Shirley Jackson
Image
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
Image
Hill House, she thought, You're as hard to get into as heaven.
Shirley Jackson
Image
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
Image
It is only with the eyes open that a corporeal form returns, and assembles itself firmly around the hard core of sight.
Shirley Jackson
Image
It has long been my belief that in times of great stress, such as a 4-day vacation, the thin veneer of family wears off almost at once, and we are revealed in our true personalities.
Shirley Jackson
Image
We were going to the long field which today looked like an ocean, although I had never seen an ocean the grass was moving in the breeze and the cloud shadows passed back and forth and the trees in the distance moved.
Shirley Jackson
Image
We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
Shirley Jackson
Image
It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
Shirley Jackson
Image
I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.
Shirley Jackson
Image
Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.
Shirley Jackson
Image
All I could think of when I got a look at the place from the outside was what fun it would be to stand out there and watch it burn down.
Shirley Jackson
Image
In ten years I will be a beautiful charming lovely lady writer without any husband or children but lots of lovers and everyone will read the books I write and want to marry me but I will never marry any of them. I will have lots of money and jewels too.
Shirley Jackson
Image
February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer.
Shirley Jackson
Image
I delight in what I fear.
Shirley Jackson
Image
Wear your boots if you wander today
Shirley Jackson
Image
Now, I have nothing against the public school system as it is presently organized, once you allow the humor of its basic assumption about how it is possible to teach things to children.
Shirley Jackson
Image
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.
Shirley Jackson