"All cat stories start with this statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this... - Shirley Jackson

...Perhaps someday they would grow as dragons.

Hill House, she thought, You're as hard to get into as heaven.

Look. There's only one of me, and it's all I've got. I hate seeing myself dissolve and slip and separate so that I'm living in one half, my mind, and I see the other half of me helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it, but I know I'm not really going to be hurt and yet time is so long and even a second goes on and on and I could stand any of it if I could only surrender-