“One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle.”

“I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other, as this Writ of Assistance is.”

“These manly sentiments, in private life, make good citizens; in public life, the patriot and the hero.”

“I am forced to get my living by the labour of my hand; and the sweat of my brow... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor...”

“There is no English equivalent for the French word flâneur. Cassell's dictionary defines flâneur as a stroller, saunterer, drifter but none of these terms seems quite accurate. There is no English equivalent for the term, just as there is no Anglo-Saxon counterpart of that essentially Gallic individual, the deliberately aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, who, being French and therefore frugal, wastes nothing, including his time which he spends with the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savoring the multiple flavors of his city.”

“Despite the fact that she was essentially comatose, she somehow made his whole house feel different just by being there. Before it had been just a house—a very impressive house no doubt, but a house nonetheless. But for some reason, with Taylor there it felt more like a home.”

“To Mr. Blot, who went through life an unconscious example of the raison d'être of the British Empire, a shipwreck was merely one of the many things to be ignored. His was a calming influence.”