Eleanor Vance Quotes

“Promise me absolutely that you will leave, as fast as you can, if you begin to feel the house catching at you.”

“During the whole underside of her life, ever since her first memory, Eleanor had been waiting for something like Hill House. Caring for her mother, lifting a cross old lady from her chair to her bed, setting out endless little trays of soup and oatmeal, steeling herself to the filthy laundry, Eleanor had held fast to the belief that someday something would happen.”

“None of them heard it, she thought with joy; nobody heard it but me.”

“I really am doing it, she thought, turning the wheel to send the car directly at the great tree at the curve of the driveway, I am really am doing it, I really am doing this all by myself, now, at last; this is me, I am really really really doing it by myself.”

“They perceived at the same moment the change in the path and each knew then the other’s knowledge of it; Theodora took Eleanor’s arm and, afraid to stop, they moved on slowly, close together, and ahead of them the path widened and blackened and curved.”

“Without a word Theodora took up the quilt from the foot of the doctor’s bed and folded it around Eleanor and herself, and they moved close together, slowly in order not to make a sound. Eleanor, clinging to Theodora, deadly cold in spite of Theodora’s arms around her, thought, It knows my name, it knows my name this time. The pounding came up the stairs, crashing on each step.”

“God God—whose hand was I holding?”

“‘I’ve never been wanted anywhere,’ she said.”

“No stone lions for me, [Eleanor] thought, no oleanders; I have broken the spell of Hill House and somehow come inside. I am home, she thought, and stopped in wonder at the thought. I am home, I am home, she thought; now to climb.”

“The light changed; she turned onto the highway and was free of the city. No one, she thought, can catch me now; they don’t even know which way I’m going.”