No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, but some, to dream.

Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me. Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep? Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!

Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess, they all went together to find a bird's nest...

Upstairs Margaret said abruptly, 'I suppose it starts to happen first in the suburbs,' and when Brad said, 'What starts to happen?' she said hysterically, 'People starting to come apart.

It is only with the eyes open that a corporeal form returns, and assembles itself firmly around the hard core of sight.

What are you reading, my dear? A pretty sight, a lady with a book.

Sister's gone to school," I said to Sally. "Ah," said Sally. "And will she come home again?

When we had neatened the upstairs rooms we came downstairs together, carrying our dustcloths and the broom and dustpan and mop like a pair of witches walking home.

My dear, how can I make you perceive that there is no danger where there is nothing but love and understanding?

Fear and guilt are sisters;

We started out making men in about the state of mind which I suppose created them in the first place -- we had run out of kinds of women, and had to think of something else.

People,” the doctor said sadly, “are always so anxious to get things out into the open where they can put a name to them, even a meaningless name, so long as it has something of a scientific ring.

Everything is worse...if you think something is looking at you.

I suppose the mothers of most twelve-year-old boys live with the uneasy conviction that their sons are embarked upon a secret life of crime.

People who are all alone have every right to be friends with one another. ("The Honeymoon Of Mrs. Smith" - Version 1)

Now, I have nothing against the public school system as it is presently organized, once you allow the humor of its basic assumption about how it is possible to teach things to children....

I decided that I would choose three powerful words, words of strong protection, and so long as these great words were never spoken aloud no change would come.

I disliked having a fork pointed at me and I disliked the sound of the voice never stopping; I wished he would put food on the fork and put it into his mouth and strangle himself.

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain,” said Lord Byron,

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.

Duty and conscience were, for Theodora, attributes which belonged properly to Girl Scouts.

Say Morg--you mind if I use the rest of your bath salts? There's only a little left.

I clear breakfast at ten o'clock. I set on lunch at one. Dinner I set on at six. It's ten o'clock.

When they were silent for a moment the quiet weight of the house pressed down from all around them.

...remember the metallic sound and taste of all of it. And the outrage.

It was as though the people needed the ugliness of the village, and fed on it. The houses and the stores seemed to have been set up in contemptuous haste to provide shelter for the drab and the unpleasant.

I loathe writing autobiographical material because if it's dull no-one should have to read it anyway, and if it's interesting I should be using it for a story.

It is not possible, I frequently think, to walk down the street as fast as you can and kick yourself at the same time.

I assume then, that you have no real faith in the fondness any of the rest of us may feel for you?' 'None,' said Mrs. Halloran.

He was scrupulous about the use of his title because, his investigations being so utterly unscientific, he hoped to borrow an air of respectability, even scholarly authority, from his education.

Journeys end in lovers meeting

I would not forget my magic words; they were MELODY GLOUCESTER PEGASUS, but I refused to let them into my mind.

I am going to put death in all their food and watch them die.

In delay there lies no plenty.

The least Charles could have done,' Constance said, considering seriously, 'was shoot himself through the head in the driveway.

To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defies our boundaries and illuminates our souls.

Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway,

Bow all your heads to our adored Mary Katherine.

I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie.

Well, she asked, how do you gentlemen like living in a haunted house? It's perfectly fine, Luke said, perfectly fine. It gives me an excuse to have a drink in the middle of the night.

The house was vile. She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once.

I hated them anyway, and wondered why it had been worth while creating them in the first place.

I live a mad, abandoned life, draped in a shawl and going from garret to garret.

We are all measured, good or evil, by the wrong we do to others;

In the darkness their feet felt that they were going downhill, and each privately and perversely accused the other of taking, deliberately, a path they had followed together once before in happiness.

She brought herself away from the disagreeably clinging thought by her usual method - imagining the sweet sharp sensation of being burned alive.

Good morning, Jonas. You are a furred lead, I think.

We started out making men in about the state of mind which I suppose created them in the first place—we had run out of kinds of women, and had to think of something else.