I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more.

I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had.

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

So long as you write it away regularly nothing can really hurt you.

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

In ten years I will be a beautiful charming lovely lady writer without any husband or children but lots of lovers and everyone will read the books I write and want to marry me but I will never marry any of them. I will have lots of money and jewels too.

On the moon we have everything. Lettuce, and pumpkin pie and Amanita phalloides. We have cat-furred plants and horses dancing with their wings. All the locks are solid and tight, and there are no ghosts.