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 JacksonThe number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.
Shirley JacksonI 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 JacksonNow, I have nothing against the public school system as it is presently organized, once you allow the humor of its basic assumption about how it is possible to teach things to children.
Shirley Jackson