FANTASY VS REALITY (SMALL MOMENTS OF WONDER)

• "Dr. Montague's letters had a certain ambiguous dignity calculated to catch the imagination of a very special sort of reader." (Ch 1)
• The showers of stones story - moments of fantasy that Eleanor herself dismissed
• "During the whole underside of her life, ever since her first memory, Eleanor had been waiting for something like Hill House.... Eleanor had held fast to the belief that someday, something would happen." (Ch 1)
• "Theodora's world was one of delight and soft colors." (Ch 1)
• The car was "a little contained world, all her own." (Ch 1)
• "She might never leave the road at all, but just hurry on and on, until the wheels of the car were worn to nothing, and she had come to the end of the world. And, she thought, I might just go along to Hill House, where I am expected." (Ch 1)
• Incredibly detailed fantasies as she drives - a life in the house with the stone lions, the oleanders guarding a secret magical place, the cottage with the white cat, etc.
• "I'm sure I've been here before, Eleanor said. In a book of fairytales, perhaps." (Ch 2)
• "There are fish.... Little ones. Minnows? Princes in disguise, all of them." (Ch 2)
• "Eleanor, wondering if she were really here at all and not dreaming of Hill House from some safe spot impossibly remote, looked slowly and carefully around the room, telling herself that this was real. These things existed.... These people were going to be her friends." (Ch 3)
• Introductions scene - I am a bull fighter, a model, etc.
• "A courtesan, a pilgrim, a princess, and a bull fighter. Hill House has surely never seen our like." (Ch 3)
• "I think I'll make this room into a nightclub, Luke said. I'll put an orchestra up on the balcony, and dancing girls will come down that winding iron staircase." (Ch 4)
• "What happens when you go back to a real house [after living in Hill House]? Eleanor asked. I mean, well - a real house?" (Ch 4)
• "Could it be, Luke asked the doctor, that what people were assuming were supernatural manifestations, were really only the result of a slight loss of balance in the people who live here?" (Ch 4)
• "Tell me, since you are a princes, what is the political condition in your country?" (Ch 4)
• "This excitement troubles me, he said. It is intoxicating, certainly, but might it not also be dangerous? An effect of the atmosphere of Hill House, the first sign that we have, as it were, fallen under a spell? Then I will be an enchanted princess, Theodora said." (Ch 5)

HILL HOUSE AS A CHARACTER (PERSONIFICATION, REACTIONS, HISTORY)

• "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within. It had stood so for eighty years, and might stand for eighty more." (Ch 1)
• "Hill House likes to make an entrance, she thought." (Ch 1)
• "Hill House is vile. It is diseased. Get away from here at once." (Ch 1)
  • (I like the idea that the last part is the house itself talking)
• "The face of Hill House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows, and the touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice." (Ch 2)
• "The house, which seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders, fitting itself into its own construction of lines and angles, reared its great head back against the sky without concession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed." (Ch 2)
• "She thought that her unwillingness to touch Hill House for the first time came directly from the feeling that it was waiting for her, evil, but patient." (Ch 2)
• "[Eleanor was] determined to make more noise, and yet more, so that Hill House might be sure she was there." (Ch 2)
• "The builders of the house had given up any attempt at style, probably after realizing what the house was going to be whether they chose it or not." (Ch 2)
• "Eleanor sensed, with a quick turn of apprehension, that flippant or critical talk about the house bothered Mrs. Dudley in some manner. Maybe she thinks it can hear us, Eleanor thought, and then was sorry she had thought it." (Ch 2)
• "Around them, the house steadied and located them. Above them, the hills slept watchfully; small eddies of air and sound and movement stirred and waited and whispered, and the center of consciousness was somehow the small space where they stood." (Ch 3)
• "Hill House has surely never seen our like." (Ch 3)
• "I propose we move in something to sit on, I cannot perch for long on anything here, I skid!" (Ch 3)
  • Every part of the house is, physically or psychologically, trying to oust them
• "Now, he said, the house does have its little oddities." (Ch 3)
• " Why are we here? What is wrong with Hill House, what is going to happen?" (Ch 3)
• "I assure you, said the doctor, that Hill House will be quiet tonight." (Ch 3)
• "Hill House has a reputation for insistent hospitality. It seemingly dislikes letting its guests get away." (Ch 3)
• "Some houses are born bad. Hill House, whatever the cause, has been unfit for human habitation for upwards of 20 years." (Ch 3)
• "What else could you call Hill House? Luke demanded. Well, disturbed. Leprous. Sick. Any of the popular euphemisms for insanity." (Ch 3)
• "
  
  thought, perhaps it has us now, this house. Perhaps it will not let us go." (Ch 3)
• "Unfortunately, Hill House was a sad house almost from the beginning." (Ch 3)
• "And here, I think, is the first hint of Hill House in its true personality, [the companion] swore that the younger sister came into the house at night and stole things." (Ch 3)
• "[The house is] just sitting there, thinking. And waiting, Eleanor said. And waiting, the doctor confirmed. Essentially, he went on slowly, the evil is the house itself, I think. It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives. It is a place of contained ill will." (Ch 3)
• "It watches, he added suddenly. The house. It watches every move you make." (Ch 3)
• "Around them, the house brooded, settling and stirring with a movement that was almost like a shudder." (Ch 3)
• "Foul, filthy house, Theodora said." (Ch 4)
• "One of the peculiar traits of Hill House is its design.... Have you not wondered at our extreme difficulty in finding our way around? An ordinary house would not have had the four of us in such confusion for so long, and yet time after time we choose the wrong doors; the room we want eludes us." (Ch 4)
• "The damnable house, Luke said. You have to watch it every minute." (Ch 4)
• The doctor refers to the cold spot in the nursery doorway as the "heart of the house." (Ch 4)
• "It doesn't seem like an impartial cold, Eleanor said, awkward, because she was not quite sure what she meant. I felt it as deliberate, as though something wanted to give me an unpleasant shock." (Ch 4)
• "Her insistence on naming Hill House troubled Eleanor. It's as though she was saying it deliberately, Eleanor thought, telling the house she knows its name - calling the house to tell it where we are. Is it bravado? Hill House, Hill House, Hill House, Theodora said softly, and smiled across at Eleanor,,,, I never would have imagined that the four of us would sit together in this house. He does not name it, Eleanor noticed." (Ch 4)
• "You have the feeling that something, whatever it is, is going to happen soon? Yes. Everything seems to be waiting." (Ch 4)
• "
  
  ran to throw her hands against the door. Go away, she shouted wildly. Go away, go away. There was complete silence, and Eleanor thought, standing with her face against the door, now I've done it. It was looking for the room with someone inside." (Ch 4)
• "You can't get in, Eleanor said wildly, and again there was a silence, as if the house listened intently to her words." (Ch 4)
• "The sense that [the house] wanted to consume us, take us into itself, make us a part of the house, maybe." (Ch 4)