“ I am living on the moon, I told myself, I have little house all by myself on the moon. Shirley Jackson
“ I never was a person who wanted a handout. I was a cafeteria worker. I'm not too proud to ask the Best Western manager to give me a job. I have cleaned homes. Shirley Jackson
“ 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
“ Name?" the desk clerk said to me politely, her pencil poised."Name," I said vaguely. I remembered, and told her."Age?" she asked. "Sex? Occupation?""Writer," I said."Housewife," she said."Writer," I s… Shirley Jackson
“ Far and away the greatest menace to the writer—any writer, beginning or otherwise—is the reader. The reader is, after all, a kind of silent partner in this whole business of writing, and a work of fic… Shirley Jackson
“ Around the house, my head deep in a pillowcase or the oven, my eyes focused on that supernatural neatness which the housewife sees somehow shadowing her familiar furniture, it was largely possible to… Shirley Jackson
“ Anything which begins new and fresh will finally become old and silly. The educational institution is certainly no exception to this, although training the young is by implication an art for old peopl… Shirley Jackson
“ It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her. Shirley Jackson
“ 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. Shirley Jackson
“ All cat stories start with the statement: 'My mother, who was the first cat, told me this,' and I lay with Jonas listening to his stories. Shirley Jackson
“ He hated the blue platter his mother served from, and the salt and pepper shakers, which were glass with red tops, and he hated the silverware designed in flowers, some pieces scratched almost beyond… Shirley Jackson
“ I was thinking that being a demon and a ghost must be very difficult, even for Charles; if he ever forgot, or let his disguise drop for a minute, he would be recognized at once and driven away; he mus… Shirley Jackson
“ The children around our house have a saying that everything is either true, not true, or one of Mother's delusions. Now, I don't know about the true things or the not-true things, because there seem t… Shirley Jackson
“ I sort of thought that maybe people had to talk that way, sort of saying the same things over and over because that way they can get along together without thinking." She stopped and thought. Why I wa… Shirley Jackson
“ We believed optimistically that Laurie was a reformed character. I told my husband, on the last day of Laurie's confinement, that actually one good scare like that could probably mark a child for life… Shirley Jackson
