“I pictured a low timber house with a shingled roof, caulked against storms, with blazing log fires inside and the walls lined with all the best books, somewhere to live when the rest of the world blew up.”

“History was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestor whispering inside. To understand history, we have to go inside and listen to what they're saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells.”

“Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.”

“Inside the book between the lines, was a place to rest and absorb the magic”

“My vantage point must have been somewhere between our little house and the steamer jetty. The sea was exceptionally calm. Lit up by a sun that you could have taken down and put in your knapsack. Everything: Mooring rings on the harbor wall, piles of timber, the arches of the houses, caiques, windows – all of them were faithful, in the way we describe a dog being faithful.”

“Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name.”