No live organism can continue ...

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. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
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 Shirley Jackson

Quotes from the same author

All cat stories start with this statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...
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 Shirley Jackson
No, the menace of the supernatural is that it attacks where modern minds are weakest, where we have abandoned our protective armor of superstition and have no substitute defense.
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 Shirley Jackson
For plain and fancy worrying, give me a new mother every time.
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 Shirley Jackson
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.
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 Shirley Jackson
It might be suggested, and not easily disproven that anything, no matter how exotic, can be believed by someone. On the other hand, abstract belief is largely impossible; it is the concrete, the actuality of the cup, the candle, the sacrificial stone, which hardens belief; the statue is nothing until it cries, the philosophy is nothing until the philosopher is martyred.
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 Shirley Jackson