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.

I never was a person who wanted a handout. I was a cafeteria worker. I'm not too proud to ask the Best Western manager to give me a job. I have cleaned homes.

I have always loved to use fear, to take it and comprehend it and make it work and consolidate a situation where I was afraid and take it whole and work from there.

I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.' 'I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance.

The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.

Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.

Hill House, she thought, You're as hard to get into as heaven.