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 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 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 JacksonGossip says she hanged herself from the turret on the tower, but when you have a house like Hill House with a tower and a turret, gossip would hardly allow you to hang yourself anywhere else.
Shirley JacksonI 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