Quotes from book
We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a 1962 mystery novel by American author Shirley Jackson. It was Jackson's final work, and was published with a dedication to Pascal Covici, the publisher, three years before the author's death in 1965. The novel is written in the voice of eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood, who lives with her sister and uncle on an estate in Vermont. Six years before the events of the novel, the Blackwood family experienced a tragedy that left the three survivors isolated from the rest of their small village.

“On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“You will be wondering about that sugar bowl, I imagine, is it still in use? You are wondering, has it been cleaned? You may very well ask, was it thoroughly washed?”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“All cat stories start with this statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this…”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“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.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“We 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 Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I remember that I stood on the library steps holding my books and looking for a minute at the soft hinted green in the branches against the sky and wishing, as I always did, that I could walk home across the sky instead of through the village.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“Today my winged horse is coming and I am carrying you off to the moon and on the moon we will eat rose petals.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“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.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I'm going to put death in all their food and watch them die.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“Fate intervened. Some of us, that day, she led inexorably through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting, took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion. Some of us took very little sugar.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“We were going to the long field which today looked like an ocean, although I had never seen an ocean; the grass was moving in the breeze and the cloud shadows passed back and forth and the trees in the distance moved.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“Oh Constance, we are so happy.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“A pretty sight, a lady with a book.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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