"The question of belief is a curious one, partaking of the wonders of childhood and the blind hopefulness of the very old; in all the world there is not someone who does not believe something."
"When Aunt Fanny awakened she was perfectly aware of all that had happened, including her own revelations, and – probably resembling in this all souls who have been the vehicle of a major supernatural pronouncement – her first reaction of shivering terror was almost at once replaced by a feeling of righteous complacence. She did not know why these extraordinary messages had been sent through her own frail self, but she believed without question that the choice had been good. She was completely subject to some greater power and, her own will somewhere buried in that which controlled her, she could only become autocratic and demanding."
"It is unholy because it is heretic. It is foul. It is abominable to need something so badly that you cannot picture living without it. It is a contradiction to the condition of mankind."
The Sundial - Shirley Jackson