“ Not one of us, even after last night, can say the word "ghost" without a littleinvoluntary smile. No, the menace of the supernatural is that it attacks wheremodern minds are weakest, where we have aba… Shirley Jackson
“ All cat stories start with this statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this... Shirley Jackson
“ The trees around and overhead were so thick that it was always dry inside and on Sunday morning I lay there with Jonas, listening to his stories. All cat stories start with the statement: 'My mother,… Shirley Jackson
“ Eleanor looked up, surprised; the little girl was sliding back in her chair, sullenly refusing her milk, while her father frowned and her brother giggled and her mother said calmly, 'She wants her cup… Shirley Jackson
“ I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is alwa… Shirley Jackson
“ I looked at the clock with the faint unconscious hope common to all mothers that time will somehow have passed magically away and the next time you look it will be bedtime. Shirley Jackson
“ When Jim Donell thought of something to say he said it as often and in as many ways as possible, perhaps because he had very few ideas and had to wring each one dry. Shirley Jackson
“ On either side of Natalie as she walked toward her own room were doors: perhaps behind one door a girl was studying, behind another a girl was crying, behind a third a girl was turning uneasily in her… Shirley Jackson
“ We have grown to trust blindly in our senses of balance and reason, and I can see where the mind might fight wildly to preserve its own familiar stable patterns against all evidence that it was leanin… Shirley Jackson
“ None of these things bothered us excessively; we have always been a family that carries bewilderment like a banner, and odd new confusions do not actually seem to be any more bewildering than the ones… Shirley Jackson
“ 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. Shirley Jackson
“ My dear, how can I make you perceive that there is no danger where there is nothing but love and understanding? Shirley Jackson
“ When they were silent for a moment the quiet weight of the house pressed down from all around them. Shirley Jackson
“ ...Don't be surprised, and I say it darkly, do not be surprised if you lose your Luke in this cause; perhaps Mrs. Dudley has not yet had her own mid morning snack, and she is perfectly capable of a fi… Shirley Jackson
“ I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside. Shirley Jackson
“ No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its… Shirley Jackson
“ Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply humorous look on a watching person; even a mischievous little chimney, or a dormer like a dimple, can catch up a beholder wi… Shirley Jackson
