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

More quotes by Shirley Jackson

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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 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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It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
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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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Oh Constance, we are so happy.
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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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We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
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in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
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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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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 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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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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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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The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.
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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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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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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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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 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