“I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path to the small blue front door with, perfectly, a white cat on the step. No one would ever find me there, either, behind all those roses, and just to make sure I would plant oleanders by the road. I will light a fire in the cool evenings and toast apples at my own hearth. I will raise white cats and sew white curtains for the windows and sometimes come out of my door to go to the store to buy cinnamon and tea and thread. People will come to me to have their fortunes told, and I will brew love potions for sad maidens; I will have a robin...”
—The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
“Eleanor looked up, surprised; the little girl was sliding back in her chair, sullenly refusing her milk, while her father frowned and her brother giggled and her mother said calmly, 'She wants her cup of stars.' Indeed yes, Eleanor thought; indeed, so do I; a cup of stars, of course. 'Her little cup,' the mother was explaining, smiling apologetically at the waitress, who was thunderstruck at the thought that the mill's good country milk was not rich enough for the little girl. 'It has stars in the bottom, and she always drinks her milk from it at home. She calls it her cup of stars because she can see the stars while she drinks her milk.' The waitress nodded, unconvinced, and the mother told the little girl, 'You'll have your milk from your cup of stars tonight when we get home. But just for now, just to be a very good little girl, will you take a little milk from this glass?' Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.” ”
—― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
Even without the context, this is probably the most personally meaningful and resonating quote I have ever read in any book.
Insist upon your cup of stars.
Every Book Elanor Mentioned Reading In Her Featured Subscriber Interview
Elanor reads a lot of books. These links are to Goodreads and to Emily Books where appropriate.
Sexual Politics by Kate Millett
How To Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ
The Loony-Bin Trip by Kate Millett
Airless Spaces by Shulamith Firestone
Promising Young Women by Suzanne Scanlon (buy it here)
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman
The Beauty Of The Husband by Anne Carson
Glass, Irony and God by Anne Carson
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson
Mercury by Ariana Reines (buy)
the buddhist by Dodie Bellamy (buy)
I’m Trying To Reach You by Barbara Browning (buy)
