Quote

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

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
Surprise
Simply
Alone
Interesting
Impatient
Thought
Altogether
Ever
Sat
Men
Talked
Selfish

More quotes by Shirley Jackson

Image
We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
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
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
The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.
Shirley Jackson
Image
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
Image
I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.
Shirley Jackson
Image
in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
Shirley Jackson
Image
I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.
Shirley Jackson
Image
I delight in what I fear.
Shirley Jackson
Image
It was one of those winter days that suddenly dream of spring, when the sky is blue and soft and clear, and the wind has dropped its voice and whispers instead of screaming, and the sun is out and the trees look surprised, and over everything there is the faintest, palest tint of green.
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
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
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
Image
Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.
Shirley Jackson
Image
Hill House, she thought, You're as hard to get into as heaven.
Shirley Jackson
Image
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
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 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
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
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