Quote

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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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
Lying
Chapter
Constance
Thinking
Woman
Uncles
Patting
Beautiful
Chapters
Commence
Hands
Forty
Julian
Together
Dear
Outright
Shall
Exaggeration
Going
Wife
Uncle
Really
Four
Slight
Think

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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.
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Wear your boots if you wander today
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in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
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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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I can't help it when people are frightened, says Merricat. I always want to frighten them more.
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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 number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.
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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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It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
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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.
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I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.
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Oh Constance, we are so happy.
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Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.
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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.
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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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All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...
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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.
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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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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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