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Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.

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
Memoir
Savages
Among
Children
Life
Disrespectful

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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 would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.
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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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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 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.
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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 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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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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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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For plain and fancy worrying, give me a new mother every time.
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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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All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...
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