Shirley Jackson

“You all want the whole world to be changed so you will be different. But I don't suppose people get changed any…

— Shirley Jackson

All I could think of when I got a look at the place from the outside was what fun it would be…

— Shirley Jackson

Cocoa? Cocoa! Damn miserable puny stuff, fit for kittens and unwashed boys. Did Shakespeare drink cocoa?

— Shirley Jackson

I have always loved to use fear, to take it and comprehend it and make it work and consolidate a situation where…

— Shirley Jackson

All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it, thickly inhabited just below the surface with my marbles and my…

— Shirley Jackson

“Everything that makes the world like it is now will be gone. We'll have new rules and new ways of living. Maybe…

— Shirley Jackson

“Eleanor—“I plan to stay up and read for a while.” “Are you still reading Pamela?” Eleanor asked the doctor. “Volume two. I…

— Shirley Jackson

“I thought,” Eleanor said carefully, “that I might even look around. Old houses are usually cheap, you know, and it’s fun to…

— Shirley Jackson

“Maybe you'll get onto the other side of that mirror in the new clean world. Maybe you'll look through from the other…

— Shirley Jackson

Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and…

— Shirley Jackson

“When I am afraid, I can see perfectly the sensible, beautiful not-afraid side of the world, I can see chairs and tables…

— Shirley Jackson

I was wondering about my eyes; one of my eyes--the left--saw everything golden and yellow and orange, and the other eye saw…

— Shirley Jackson

“If I am not the legal resident of the apartment you cannot evict me. You cannot evict Mrs. Tuttle, who is the…

— Shirley Jackson

“Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply humorous look on a watching person; even a…

— Shirley Jackson

“You see,” said Tony, her voice still soft so as not to be overheard, but somehow fierce and angry, “it frightens me…

— Shirley Jackson

“Perhaps tomorrow I shall pick up one of the houses, any one, and, holding it gently in one hand, pull it carefully…

— Shirley Jackson

“The trees around and overhead were so thick that it was always dry inside and on Sunday morning I lay there with…

— Shirley Jackson

“She could not remember ever being truly happy in her adult life; her years with her mother had been built up devotedly…

— Shirley Jackson

I was already doing a lot of splendid research reading all the books about ghosts I could get hold of, and particularly…

— Shirley Jackson

“Hugh Crain,” Theodora said, “you were a dirty old man, and you made a dirty old house and if you can still…

— Shirley Jackson

“Perhaps someone had once hoped to lighten the air of the blue room in Hill House with a dainty wallpaper, not seeing…

— Shirley Jackson

I remember that I stood on the library steps holding my books and looking for a minute at the soft hinted green…

— Shirley Jackson

Can't you make them stop?' I asked her that day, wondering if there was anything in this woman I could speak to,…

— Shirley Jackson

“Hill House, not sane, stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly,…

— Shirley Jackson