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For plain and fancy worrying, give me a new mother every time.

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
Every
Time
Worrying
Plain
Fancy
Worry
Mother
Give
Giving

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.
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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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Oh Constance, we are so happy.
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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 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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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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We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
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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I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.
Shirley Jackson
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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 can't help it when people are frightened, says Merricat. I always want to frighten them more.
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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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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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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Wear your boots if you wander today
Shirley Jackson
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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.
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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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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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