Shirley Jackson: Living

Shirley Jackson was novelist, short story writer. Explore interesting quotes on living.
Shirley Jackson: 98   quotes 4   likes

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House

Reality

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House

Dreams , Reality

“When shall we live if not now?”

Shirley Jackson book The Sundial

Source: The Sundial

“It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
Context: This house, which seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders, fitting itself into its own construction of lines and angles, reared its great head back against the sky without concession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed.

Love , People , Hope , Housing

“Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools, he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery," he added petulantly.”

Shirley Jackson book The Lottery

The Lottery (1948)

Fools , Way

“Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.”

Shirley Jackson

Regarding her story The Lottery, in the San Francisco Chronicle (22 July 1948)

Hope