Shirley Jackson

“She is hysterical,” said Mrs. Halloran. “Slap her quite firmly in the face.”

— Shirley Jackson

“I dined upon a bird, and radishes from the garden, and homemade plum jam.”

— Shirley Jackson

“I have no way of knowing what we may be called upon to do for ourselves.”

— Shirley Jackson

“Slowly the pattern of our days grew, and shaped itself into a happy life.”

— Shirley Jackson

“Say Morg--you mind if I use the rest of your bath salts? There's only a little left.”

— Shirley Jackson

“We are all measured, good or evil, by the wrong we do to others;”

— Shirley Jackson

It watches," he added suddenly. "The house. It watches every move you make.

— Shirley Jackson

“That’s wrong, Mrs. Winning was thinking, you mustn’t ever talk about whether people like you, that’s bad taste.”

— Shirley Jackson

“I clear breakfast at ten o'clock. I set on lunch at one. Dinner I set on at six. It's ten o'clock.”

— Shirley Jackson

Materializations are often best produced in rooms where there are books. I cannot think of any time when materialization was in any…

— Shirley Jackson

“We started out making men in about the state of mind which I suppose created them in the first place -- we…

— Shirley Jackson

“she might never leave the road at all, but just hurry on and on until the wheels of the car were worn…

— Shirley Jackson

“It is unholy because it is heretic. It is foul. It is abominable to need something so badly that you cannot picture…

— Shirley Jackson

“People,” the doctor said sadly, “are always so anxious to get things out into the open where they can put a name…

— Shirley Jackson

“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might…

— Shirley Jackson

“She turned her car onto the last stretch of straight drive leading her directly, face to face, to Hill House and, moving…

— Shirley Jackson

“Wait till you see the bedrooms,” Eleanor said. “Mine used to be the embalming room, I think.” “It’s the home I’ve always…

— Shirley Jackson

The idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have…

— Shirley Jackson

“On the other hand,” the doctor continued behind her, “a Fielding novel comparable in length, although hardly in subject matter, would never…

— Shirley Jackson

It was one of those winter days that suddenly dream of spring, when the sky is blue and soft and clear, and…

— Shirley Jackson

“At my age an hour's reading before bedtime is essential, and I wisely brought Pamela with me. If any of you has…

— Shirley Jackson

“In any case,” the doctor said, “I will not sleep for an hour or so yet; at my age an hour’s reading…

— Shirley Jackson

“Well I am here, I am at the heart, I have come through the maze--where is the secret I am to learn…

— Shirley Jackson

She walked quickly around her one-room apartment. After more than four years in this one home she knew all its possibilities, how…

— Shirley Jackson

“Around her the trees and wild flowers, with that oddly courteous air of natural things suddenly interrupted in their pressing occupations of…

— Shirley Jackson

“The beautiful clarity of all marked outlines occurred to her--there would be a deep satisfaction in strengthening fences, for instance, going along…

— Shirley Jackson

“I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path to the small blue…

— Shirley Jackson

“Where, she wondered, is Elizabeth? Where in the tightness of the skin over her arms and legs, in the narrow bones of…

— Shirley Jackson

“The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been…

— Shirley Jackson

“It was the first time the chief of police, a kindly family man whose name was Hook, had ever been required to…

— Shirley Jackson

“The question of belief is a curious one, partaking of the wonders of childhood and the blind hopefulness of the very old;…

— Shirley Jackson

“It is not possible, I frequently think, to walk down the street as fast as you can and kick yourself at the…

— shirley jackson

The first book is the book you have to write to get back at your parents; the book you always had in…

— Shirley Jackson

“Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we…

— Shirley Jackson

“Don’t do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like…

— Shirley Jackson

“I am tired of writing dainty little biographical things that pretend that I am a trim little housewife ... I live in…

— Shirley Jackson

“In this village the men stayed young and did the gossiping and the women aged with grey evil weariness and stood silently…

— Shirley Jackson

“When Jim Donell thought of something to say he said it as often and in as many ways as possible, perhaps because…

— Shirley Jackson

“And there were birds singing, and--oh, I wish I could remember, and make you all see how lovely it was!--and flowers, and…

— Shirley Jackson

Let him be wise, or let me be blind; don't let me, she hoped concretely, don't let me know too surely what…

— Shirley Jackson