Quote

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

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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
Thinking
Watch
Fun
Stand
Place
Look
Looks
Burn
Would
Outside
Think
Watches

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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.
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The sight of one's own heart is degrading people are not meant to look inward - that's why they've been given bodies, to hide their souls.
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Oh Constance, we are so happy.
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It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
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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.
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The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.
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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.
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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.
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in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
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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.
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I delight in what I fear.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Fear, the doctor said, is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway.
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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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For plain and fancy worrying, give me a new mother every time.
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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.
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