The Lottery, and Other Stories – Shirley Jackson

by Shirley Jackson

Grace Paley once described the male-female writer phenomenon to me by saying, “Women have always done men the favor of reading their work, but the men have not returned the favor.”

“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 wading-through-molasses feeling of trying to hurry children.

“If most women knew how their husbands were going to turn out, there’d be less marrying going on.”