“A saguaro can fall for a snowman but where would they set up house?”

“At that moment, Dave would have lifted a house for Jimmy, held it up to his chest until Jimmy told him where to put it down.”

“Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.”

“But there can be no secrets in a house where there are children.”

“When I returned, I never once walked past the house where my mother, aunt, and I lved together...It was as if the past would judge me. The house would judge me. That merely looking at it would somehow cause me to calibrate my life, and in all aspects of usefulness I would come up short.”

“The house is a place where things can go wrong.”