The Bird's Nest Quotes

“It is not proven that Elizabeth's person equilibrium was set off balance by the slant of the office floor, nor could it be proven that it was Elizabeth who pushed the building off its foundations, but it is undeniable that they began to slip at about the same time.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“We are all measured, good or evil, by the wrong we do to others; I had made a monster and turned it loose upon the world and--since recognition is, after all, the cruelest pain--had seen it clearly and with understanding.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“She was a stranger in a world of strangers and they were strangers she had left behind”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess, they all went together to find a bird's nest...”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“I was thinking what it must feel like to be a prisoner going to die; you stand there looking at the sun and the sky and the grass and the trees, and because it's the last time you're going to see them they're wonderful, full of colors you never noticed before, and bright and beautiful and terribly hard to leave behind. And then, suppose you're reprieved, and you get up the next morning and you're not dead; could you look again at the sun and the trees and the sky and think they're the same old sun and sky and trees, nothing special at all, just the same told things you've seen every day? Not changed at all, just because you don't have to give them up?”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“I'd have to be pretty damn silly to think that people had rights to other people's love; in my life I've earned more love and got less than anyone I know.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Although she would sooner have given up thinking than eating, she resented being pushed into depriving herself of either.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Her manner of dress, of speech, of doing her hair, of spending her time, had not changed since it first became apparent to a far younger Morgen that in all her life to come no one was, in all probability, going to care in the slightest how she looked, or what she did, and the minor wrench of leaving humanity behind was more than compensated for by her complacent freedom from a thousand small irritations.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Say Morg--you mind if I use the rest of your bath salts? There's only a little left.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Now I will be heard, and when I choose to be heard, the lowest legions of hell may turn in vain to silence me and when I choose to speak not all the winds of earth can drown my voice.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Someday," she said evilly, rubbing her hands against her eyes, "I am going to get my eyes open all the time and then I will eat you and Lizzie both.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Where, she wondered, is Elizabeth? Where in the tightness of the skin over her arms and legs, in the narrow bones of her back and the planned structure of her ribs, in the tiny toes and fingers and the vital plan for her neck and head . . . where, in all this, was there room for anyone else? Could Lizzie be seen moving furtively behind the clarity of the eyes, edging in caution to peer out at herself; was she gone far within, waiting behind the heart or the throat, to seize with both hands and take control with a murderous attack? Was she under the hair, had she found refuge in a knee? Where was Lizzie?
For a moment, staring, Betsy wanted frantically to rip herself apart, and give half to Lizzie and never be troubled again, saying take this, and take this and take this, and you can have this, and now get out of my sight, get away from my body, get away and leave me alone. Lizzie could have the useless parts, the breasts and the thighs and the parts she took such pleasure in letting give her pain; Lizzie could have the back so she would always have a backache, and the stomach so she would always be able to have cramps; give Elizabeth all the country of the inside, and let her go away, and leave Betsy in possession of her own.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“No one ever remembers just a bad thing, they remember all around it, all that happened before it and after it, and of course, she told herself consolingly, one bad thing is probably enough.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“I reveal myself, then, at last: I am a villian, for I created wantonly, and a blackguard, for I destroyed without compassion; I have no excuse.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Let my reader who is puzzled by my awkward explanations close his eyes for no more than two minutes, and see if he does not find himself suddenly not a compact human being at all, but only a consciousness on a sea of sound and touch; it is only with the eyes open that a corporeal form returns, and assembles itself firmly around the hard core of sight.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“The most important thing she had learned so far - and it was something to know, after only twelve hours - was that she need not pretend, always, to be competent or at home in a strange atmosphere. Other people, she had learned, were frequently uneasy and uncertain, lost their way or their money, were nervous at being approached by strangers or wary of officials.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“A thought of the world swept over her, of people living around her, singing, dancing, laughing; it seemed unexpectedly and joyfully that in all this great world of the city there were a thousand places where she might go and live in deep happiness, among friends who were waiting for her here in the stirring crowds of the city.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“She was watching Aunt Morgen carefully, looking at the big earnest ugly face and the false little smile and the mouth still a little open, and she thought, people shouldn’t ever look closely at one another, they’re not like pictures.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“How happy we all are, she thought, and how lucky that I came at last!”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Morgan had been, for a very long time, the most remarkable object in her own landscape, and anything stranger than herself was, to her mind, either an obvious sham, or non-existent.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“«Pensavo a come ci si debba sentire a essere un prigioniero che va a morire; guardi il sole e il cielo e l'erba e gli alberi, e siccome è l'ultima volta che li vedi, sono meravigliosi, pieni di colori che non avevi mai notato, e intensi e belli ed è terribilmente difficile lasciarli. E poi mettiamo che l'esecuzione sia sospesa, e ti svegli il mattino dopo e non sei morto; riuscirai a guardare il sole e gli alberi e il cielo e pensare che sono il solito vecchio sole, il solito vecchio cielo, i soliti vecchi alberi? Che non hanno niente di speciale, che sono le stesse vecchie cose che hai visto tutto i giorni, solo perché non sei più costretto a rinunciarvi?»”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Sarei davvero una bella scema se pensassi che le persone hanno diritto all'amore degli altri; in vita mia ho meritato più amore e ne ho avuto meno di chiunque conosca.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Dunque alla fine mi svelo: sono un mascalzone, per aver creato alla leggera, e un malvagio, per aver distrutto senza pietà. Non ho scusanti.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Veniamo tutti misurati, buoni e cattivi, dal male che facciamo agli altri. Io avevo creato un mostro e l'avevo lasciato libero di andare in giro per il mondo, e – poiché l'ammissione è, dopotutto, il dolore più crudele – ammetto che avevo visto tutto con chiarezza e lucidità.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Era una sconosciuta in un mondo di sconosciuti ed erano sconosciuti anche quelli che si era lasciata alle spalle.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“«Un giorno» ribatté con voce maligna, sfregandosi gli occhi con le dita «riuscirò a stare con gli occhi aperti tutto il tempo e vi mangerò tutti e due, te e Lizzie»”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest

“Il lettore che fosse sconcertato dalle mie impacciate descrizioni dovrebbe solo provare a chiudere gli occhi per non più di due minuti e scoprirebbe che, tutt'a un tratto, egli non è più un essere umano solido, bensì una pura coscienza immersa in un mare di sensazioni sonore e tattili; è solo quando abbiamo gli occhi aperti che torna la forma corporea, costruendosi saldamente attorno al nocciolo duro della vista.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest