310 Quotes by Shirley Jackson

Peace, Eleanor thought concretely; what I want in all this world is peace, a quiet spot to lie and think, a quiet spot up among the flowers where I can dream and tell myself sweet stories.

Wait till you see the bedrooms,” Eleanor said. “Mine used to be the embalming room, I think.” “It’s the home I’ve always dreamed of,” Theodora said. “A little hideaway where I can be alone with my thoughts. Particularly if my thoughts happened to be about murder or suicide or –.

All I want is to be cherished, she thought, and here I am talking gibberish with a selfish man.

Tell me something that only I will ever know, was perhaps what she wanted to ask him, or, What will you remember me by? – or even, Nothing of the least importance has ever belonged to me; can you help?

It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

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

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 reveal myself, then, at last: I am a villian, for I created wantonly, and a blackguard, for I destroyed without compassion; I have no excuse.

Nothing irrevocable had yet been spoken, but there was only the barest margin of safety left them; each of them moving delicately along the outskirts of an open question, and, once spoken, such a question – as “Do you love me?” – could never be answered or forgotten.