A Quote by Shirley Jackson

I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.' 'I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance. — © Shirley Jackson
I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.' 'I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance.
I could teach. I could wait tables. I could cook in a restaurant. Food and teaching were the two skills I had.
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.
My mother always said you could eat off her floor; you could eat of my floor too, there's so much food down there.
Last week I told my wife, If you would learn to cook, I could fire the chef. She said, If you could learn to make love, I could fire the chauffer.
Wonder was the grace of the country. Any action could be justified by that: the wonder it was rooted in. Period followed period, and finally the wonder was that things could be built so big. Bridges, skyscrapers, fortunes, all having a life first in the marketplace, still drew on the force of wonder.
It was only my second night in Africa, yet something had begun to grow inside me which I could not stop, as if my childhood dreams had finally found the place where they could materialize. I had arrived where I was always meant to be. I did not know how it could be practically achieved, but I was certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that it was here that I wanted to live.
The only kind of restaurant I could imagine doing would be the extraordinarily snooty restaurant with three or four tables, and I would cook what I felt like cooking. And you could eat it or not.
I was in an adolescent psychology class at Citadel when the guy said, if you had a mother who was beaten, there's a great chance you'll beat your wife. And if you were beaten as a child, there's a terrific chance you're going to be a child-beater.
I listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them, kill them, turn back time to the moment before I had talked so that I could have another chance to save myself.
It could be anything. It could be Jesus and it could be the Furby and it could be the lint that lives in my navel, but it's probably not. Whatever it is, I doubt we as humans on Earth could have any perception of it while we're here. So, why give yourself a headache thinking about it. Just be a good person. That's what an ethicist is.
All I could do was try to build a new life and find a way somehow to repair some of the damage. People had every reason to doubt my sincerity, but most of them didn't. And - given my history, it was more than I could've hoped for - forgiveness and the benefit of the doubt. It still amazes me.
I can't cook! It's genetic. My grandmother can't cook, my mother can't cook. I was raised to believe you eat because your body needs fuel for energy, so I eat super foods.
Sometimes you wonder, I mean really wonder. I know we make our own reality, and we always have a choice, but how much is preordained? Is there always a fork in the road, and are there two preordained paths that are equally preordained? There could be hundreds of paths where one could go this way or that way -- there's a chance, and it's very strange sometimes.
Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.
The doctor told Phil, my then husband, that my condition was really bad news. They had found an artery tearing and said I could die. They said they could try to patch it up but it could go horribly wrong. It all turned out okay in the end but it was touch and go.
Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.
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