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

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I delight in what I fear.
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It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
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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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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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All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...
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For plain and fancy worrying, give me a new mother every time.
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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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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?
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I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.
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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.
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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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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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Oh Constance, we are so happy.
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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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We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
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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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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.
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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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in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
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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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