Danielle D

“I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“It was not beauty at all that she wanted, or depressed though she was, she would have bought a ticket to somewhere or other upon the Metropolitan railway and gone out to see the recumbent autumnal graces of the country-side. Her mind was groping after something that eluded her experience, a something that was shadowy and menacing, and yet in some way congenial; a something that lurked in waste places, that was hinted at by the sound of water gurgling through deep channels and by the voices of birds of ill-omen. Loneliness, dreariness, aptness for arousing a sense of fear, a kind of ungodly hallowedness - these were the things that called her thoughts away from the comfortable fireside.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes

“The two women sat by the fire, tilting their glasses and drinking in small peaceful sips. The lamplight shone upon the tidy room and the polished table, lighting topaz in the dandelion wine, spilling pools of crimson through the flanks of the bottle of plum gin. It shone on the contented drinkers, and threw their large, close-at-hand shadows upon the wall. When Mrs Leak smoothed her apron the shadow solemnified the gesture as though she were moulding an universe. Laura's nose and chin were defined as sharply as the peaks peaks on a holly leaf.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes

“Happy people know suffering more than anyone else, and that’s how they can see just how damn beautiful their lives are. It’s because they’ve seen the depths.”
― Brianna Wiest