Shirley Jackson quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Shirley Jackson on Wise Famous Quotes.

Journeys end in lovers meeting

I was not allowed to prepare food, nor was I allowed to gather mushrooms...

I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.

So long as you write it away regularly nothing can really hurt you.

I suppose the mothers of most twelve-year-old boys live with the uneasy conviction that their sons are embarked upon a secret life of crime.

She brought herself away from the disagreeably clinging thought by her usual method - imagining the sweet sharp sensation of being burned alive.

Today my winged horse is coming and I am carrying you off to the moon and on the moon we will eat rose petals.

Don't be so afraid all the time," she said and reached out to touch Eleanor's cheek with one finger. "We never know where our courage is coming from.

I delight in what I fear.

All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this ...

Good morning, Jonas. You are a furred lead, I think.

The gap between the poetry she wrote and the poetry she contained was, for Natalie, something unsolvable

The food comes from the ground and cant' be permitted to stay there and rot; something has to be done with it.

To learn what we fear is to learn who we are.

During all of dinner the singing went on upstairs, and no one said a word.

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

I am a kind of stray cat, aren't I?

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

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain, said Lord Byron,

People like answering questions about themselves, she thought; what an odd pleasure it is. I would answer anything right now. "What

I live a mad, abandoned life, draped in a shawl and going from garret to garret.

Someday," she said evilly, rubbing her hands against her eyes, "I am going to get my eyes open all the time and then I will eat you and Lizzie both.

Duty and conscience were, for Theodora, attributes which belonged properly to Girl Scouts.

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

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

It is only with the eyes open that a corporeal form returns, and assembles itself firmly around the hard core of sight.

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

Oh Constance, we are so happy.

I made a rule for myself: Never think anything more than once...

Hill House, she thought, You're as hard to get into as heaven.

The least Charles could have done,' Constance said, considering seriously, 'was shoot himself through the head in the driveway.

Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.

What are you reading, my dear? A pretty sight, a lady with a book.

There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.

I hated them anyway, and wondered why it had been worth while creating them in the first place.

Everything is worse ... if you think something is looking at you.

I think we are only afraid of ourselves," the doctor said slowly.
"No," Luke said. "Of seeing ourselves clearly and without disguise.

We eat the year away. We eat the spring and the summer and the fall. We wait for something to grow and then we eat it.

Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess, they all went together to find a bird's nest ...

On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.

What was wrong with Mrs Blackwood doing her own cooking"
"Please" (...) "I personally preferred the arsenic".

Why don't you grow up by yourself?

Bow all your heads to our adored Mary Katherine.

Wear your boots if you wander today

I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.'
'I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance.

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

When they were silent for a moment the quiet weight of the house pressed down from all around them.

Why do women always look so funny alone at night? she thought. I guess you're so used to seeing them with someone.

She wants her cup of stars." Eleanor

(an early dust-flap biography called her "a practicing amateur witch,

although she shook her head.

In delay there lies no plenty.

I don't like the younger sister,' Theodora said. 'First she stole her sister's lover, and then she tried to steal her sister's dishes.

Although she would sooner have given up thinking than eating, she resented being pushed into depriving herself of either.

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.

I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more.

Nothing," she said, "upsets me more than being hungry; I snarl and snap and burst into tears.

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

Therefore it was not pride that took me into the village twice a week, or even stubbornness, but only the simple need for books and food.

God! Whose hand was I holding?

In the country of the story the writer is king.

Anything you raise by the way of spirits you have to put back yourself.

February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.

An Eleanor, she told herself triumphantly, who belongs, who is talking easily, who is sitting by the fire with her friends.

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

It's not nice to think of children growing up like mushrooms, in the dark.

In all the world there is not someone who does not believe something.

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

Insist on your cup of stars.

Some of the people in the village had real faces that I knew and could hate individually; Jim

I would not forget my magic words; they were MELODY GLOUCESTER PEGASUS, but I refused to let them into my mind.

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

I assume then, that you have no real faith in the fondness any of the rest of us may feel for you?'
'None,' said Mrs. Halloran.

this was a time and a land where enchantments were swiftly made and broken

My dear, how can I make you perceive that there is no danger where there is nothing but love and understanding?

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.

Our house was a castle, turreted and open to the sky.

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

I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.

When shall we live if not now?

I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.

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

People who are all alone have every right to be friends with one another.
("The Honeymoon Of Mrs. Smith" - Version 1)

Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep? Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!

...you'd think my own face would know me...

I am living on the moon, I told myself, I have little house all by myself on the moon.

I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.

Bridge is a game for the undivided intellect.

The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.

Fear and guilt are sisters;

We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.

A pretty sight, a lady with a book.

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.

I think, for instance, that no one can really love a person who is not superior in every way.

Sister's gone to school," I said to Sally.
"Ah," said Sally. "And will she come home again?

Why do people want to talk to each other? I mean, what are the things people always want to find out about other people?

Remember the metallic sound and taste of all of it. And the outrage.

They walked over to it and Brad bent down gingerly: "It's a leg all right," he said.

I'm going to put death in all their food and watch them die.