Perhaps someone had once hoped to lighten the air of the blue room in Hill House with a dainty wallpaper, not seeing how such a hope would evaporate … - Shirley Jackson

"The trees around and overhead were so thick that it was always dry inside and on Sunday morning I lay there with Jonas, listening to his stories. All cat stories start with the statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this," and I lay with my head close to Jonas and listened. There was no change coming, I thought here, only spring; I was wrong to be so frightened. The days would get warmer, and Uncle Julian would sit in the sun, and Constance would laugh when she worked in the garden, and it would always be the same. Jonas went on and on ("And then we sang! And then we sang!") and the leaves moved overhead and it would always be the same."

"We couldn't even hear you, in the night....
No one could. No one lives any nearer than town. No one else will come any nearer than that."
"I know," Eleanor said tiredly.
"In the night," Mrs. Dudley said, and smiled outright. "In the dark," she said..

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.