Shirley Jackson Quotes

Understand: A person of power instills a kind of fear by deliberately unsettling those around him to keep the initative on his side.

I like to make them squirm.

I don't like people that try to psyche other people out.

Fear is something I instill in other people, mostly young girls.

Intimidation doesn't last very long.

Anyone obsessed with power sees enemies everywhere.

I have learnt that bullies use fear and intimidation as their primary weapons.

If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid.

How do you play Hannibal Lector? Well just don't move. Scare people by being still.

You can't be loved for long if you're not feared.

Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.

People who want to manipulate you will fear your joy, because it's not easily controlled.

The people who have the power want you scared. They want you walking around paralyzed by the notion that you could die at any moment.

People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around.

Man is always exploited through fear.

We have to be irrational and vindictive, because that's going to frighten people. And we have to maintain this for years. And then we'll be able to carry out the actions that we want to carry out.

Let people hate you so long as they fear you.

I won’t snatch, harm, or scare to death people with you or use checking up on you as an excuse to cause trouble. You’re worse than my mother, Rachel.” “Mine, too,” Jenks muttered.

Authoritarians tend to consolidate support by using fear, but more importantly by driving a wedge among the people that they want to control.

You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong." He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the point of contact, like he's transmitting electricity through his skin. "My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press." he says, his fingers squeezing at the word break. My body tenses at the edge in his voice, so I am coiled as tight as a spring, and I forget to breathe.

Most fatal, most hateful of all things is bullying.... Sensual bullying of course is fairly easily detected. What is more dangerous is ideal bullying. Bullying people into what is ideally good for them.

A bully is fighting out of a need to dominate. And is usually unwilling to take the consequences.

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

In order not to hold a frame with someone, you have to be intimidated by them.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.