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I can't help it when people are frightened, says Merricat. I always want to frighten them more.

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
Says
Help
Helping
Always
People
Frighten
Frightened

More quotes by Shirley Jackson

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Oh Constance, we are so happy.
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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I delight in what I fear.
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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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?
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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Hill House, she thought, You're as hard to get into as heaven.
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.
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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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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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.
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
Shirley Jackson
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All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...
Shirley Jackson
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make.
Shirley Jackson
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I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.
Shirley Jackson
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Wear your boots if you wander today
Shirley Jackson