“All the pictures on the walls, they all white as lilies and smiling like alligators.”

“...but I was sure he'd been talking about the home of someone white, because he'd said, "All the pictures on the walls, they all white as lilies and smiling like alligators.”

“The white lily stands for purity. Artists for centuries have pictured the angel Gabriel coming to the virgin Mary with a spray of lillies in his hand, to announce that she is to be the mother of the Turks.”

“Au revoir, jewelled alligators and white hotels, hallucinatory forests, farewell.”

“Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.”

“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.”