01c. 1940 AD...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 filet de Luke á la meuniére, or perhaps dieppoise, depending upon her mood; if I do not return" -and he shook his finger warningly under the doctor's nose- "I entreat you to regard your lunch with the gravest suspicion." Bowing extravagantly, as befitted one off to slay a giant, he closed the door behind him.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
02c. 1940 ADNo 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 hills, holding darkness within. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
03c. 1940 ADIt isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
05c. 1940 ADIt’s not nice to think of children growing up like mushrooms, in the dark.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
06c. 1940 ADWhen they were silent for a moment the quiet weight of the house pressed down from all around them.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
07c. 1940 ADMy dear, how can I make you perceive that there is no danger where there is nothing but love and understanding?Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
09c. 1940 ADHe 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 recognition. He even hated the round table and the succession of tablecloths, one pale blue with yellow leaves, one white with red and orange squares. He hated the uncomfortable chairs, particularly his own, where he sat squirming, and he hated his family and the way they talked.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
11c. 1940 ADWe 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 / quote ↗
12c. 1940 ADAll 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 / quote ↗
13c. 1940 ADNone 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 we invent for ourselves; moreover, in each of these cases it was easier to believe that nothing had happened, or that it was of no importance anyway.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
15c. 1940 ADWe 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 leaning sideways.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
16c. 1940 ADI 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 / quote ↗
18c. 1940 ADOn 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 sleep. Behind a certain definite door downstairs Anne and Vicki sat, laughing and speaking in loud voices whatever they chose to say; behind other doors girls lifted their heads at Natalie's footsteps, turned, wondered, and went back to their work. I wish I were the only person in all the world, Natalie thought, with a poignant longing, thinking then that perhaps she was, after all.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
19c. 1940 ADWhen 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 / quote ↗
20c. 1940 ADName?" 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 said."I'll just put down housewife," she said.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
21c. 1940 ADI 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 / quote ↗
22c. 1940 ADI 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 always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing. Just as I believe that a painter cannot sit down to his morning coffee without noticing what color it is, so a writer cannot see an odd little gesture without putting a verbal description to it, and ought never to let a moment go by undescribed.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
23c. 1940 ADEleanor 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 of stars.'Indeed yes, Eleanor thought; indeed, so do I; a cup of stars, of course.'Her little cup,' the mother was explaining, smiling apologetically at the waitress, who was thunderstruck at the thought that the mill's good country milk was not rich enough for the little girl. 'It has stars in the bottom, and she always drinks her milk from it at home. She calls it her cup of stars because she can see the stars while she drinks her milk.' The waitress nodded, unconvinced, and the mother told the little girl, 'You'll have your milk from your cup of stars tonight when we get home. But just for now, just to be a very good little girl, will you take a little milk from this glass?'Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
24c. 1940 ADThe 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, who was the first cat, told me this,' and I lay with my head close to Jonas and listened.Shirley Jackson / quote ↗
