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

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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 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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We were going to the long field which today looked like an ocean, although I had never seen an ocean the grass was moving in the breeze and the cloud shadows passed back and forth and the trees in the distance moved.
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in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
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For plain and fancy worrying, give me a new mother every time.
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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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The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.
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It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
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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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We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.
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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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