The first book is the book you have to write to get back at your parents; the book you always had in you. Once you get that out of your way, you can start writing books.
Shirley JacksonWe 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 JacksonI 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 JacksonAll 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 JacksonShe 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