We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame. Shirley Jackson More Quotes by Shirley Jackson More Quotes From Shirley Jackson My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead. Shirley Jackson doghandsyears Bridge is a game for the undivided intellect. Shirley Jackson intellectbridgesgames On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons. Shirley Jackson moonhairhands I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world. Shirley Jackson tonguemoonworld I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do. Shirley Jackson detectivesbelieve She had taken to wondering lately, during these swift-counted years, what had been done with all those wasted summer days; how could she have spent them so wantonly? I am foolish, she told herself early every summer, I am very foolish; I am grown up now and know the values of things. Nothing is ever really wasted, she believed sensibly, even one's childhood, and then each year, one summer morning, the warm wind would come down the city street where she walked and she would be touched with the little cold thought: I have let more time go by. Shirley Jackson takensummermorning 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. Shirley Jackson funwatchesthinking February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer. Shirley Jackson airsummerwinter I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. Shirley Jackson lucktwohands I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains no pertinent facts. Shirley Jackson fake-peoplewritinggiving I took my coffee into the dining room and settled down with the morning paper. A woman in New York had had twins in a taxi. A woman in Ohio had just had her seventeenth child. A twelve-year-old girl in Mexico had given birth to a thirteen-pound boy. The lead article on the woman's page was about how to adjust the older child to the new baby. I finally found an account of an axe murder on page seventeen, and held my coffee cup up to my face to see if the steam might revive me. Shirley Jackson girlmorningbaby Fate intervened. Some of us, that day, she led inexorably through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting, took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion. Some of us took very little sugar. Shirley Jackson sugarfatelittles No, the menace of the supernatural is that it attacks where modern minds are weakest, where we have abandoned our protective armor of superstition and have no substitute defense. Shirley Jackson armordefensemind I was thinking, I could turn him into a fly and drop him into a spider's web and watch him tangled and helpless and struggling, shut into the body of a dying buzzing fly; I could wish him dead until he died.I could fasten him to a tree and keep him there until he grew into the trunk and bark grew over his mouth. if he was under the ground I could walk over him stamping my feet. Shirley Jackson strugglefeetthinking I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles. Shirley Jackson I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more. Shirley Jackson wanthelpingpeople Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children. Shirley Jackson disrespectfulsavageschildren The idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have to live it with a home and a husband and children, none of whom would dream of following one another docilely. Shirley Jackson husbanddreamchildren I was wondering about my eyes; one of my eyes--the left--saw everything golden and yellow and orange, and the other eye saw shades of blue and grey and green; perhaps one eye was for daylight and the other was for night. If everyone in the world saw different colors from different eyes there might be a great many new colors still to be invented. Shirley Jackson eyeyellownight In the country of the story the writer is king. Shirley Jackson kingsstoriescountry
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