The Lottery and Other Stories (FSG Classics)

by Shirley Jackson

“In my day,” he said, overemphasizing, “girls thought of nothing but cocktails and necking.” “That’s partly the trouble,” she answered him seriously. “If people had been really, honestly scared when you were young we wouldn’t be so badly off today.”

The eternal generational struggle

“Each time we begin a chapter in Cæsar, I wonder if this won’t be the one we never finish. Maybe we in our Latin class will be the last people who ever read Cæsar.”

The similar thoughts I have to this every day, it feels like

“There won’t be any schools,” she said flatly. “No one will learn anything. To keep from getting back where we are now.”