Talk:Shirley Jackson

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Shirley Jackson. --Antiquary 18:20, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Curiously, there are three main themes which dominate the letters of that first summer--three themes which might be identified as bewilderment, speculation and plain old-fashioned abuse. In the years since then, during which the story has been anthologized, dramatized, televised, and even--in one completely mystifying transformation--made into a ballet, the tenor of letters I receive has changed. I am addressed more politely, as a rule, and the letters largely confine themselves to questions like what does this story mean? The general tone of the early letters, however, was a kind of wide-eyed, shocked innocence. People at first were not so much concerned with what the story meant; what they wanted to know was where these lotteries were held, and whether they could go there and watch.
 * Regarding the letters she received after publishing The Lottery


 * I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.


 * I delight in what I fear.


 * 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.


 * It has long been my belief that in times of great stress, such as a 4-day vacation, the thin veneer of family wears off almost at once, and we are revealed in our true personalities.


 * Our major exports are books and children, both of which we produce in abundance.