Quote

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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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
Work
Dislike
Chronological
Much
Fake
Pertinent
People
Material
Autobiographical
Materials
Outline
Facts
Outlines
Give
Pressed
Giving
Bare
Writing
Contains

More quotes by 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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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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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 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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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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All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...
Shirley Jackson
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We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
Shirley Jackson
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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
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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.
Shirley Jackson
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Wear your boots if you wander today
Shirley Jackson
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I delight in what I fear.
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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in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.
Shirley Jackson
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Oh Constance, we are so happy.
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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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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The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.
Shirley Jackson
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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.
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