“Got to be the worst place in the world, inside a oven. You in here, you either cleaning or you getting cooked.”

“My girl has got a bun in her oven, and I guess you know who did the damn cooking.”

“But you don’t have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”“You don’t have to assume the worst about everyone, either. The world isn’t always out to get you.”

“But housekeeping is fun. It is one job where you enjoy the results right along as you work. You may work all day washing and ironing, but at night you have the delicious feeling of sunny clean sheets and airy pillows to lie on. If you clean, you sit down at nightfall with the house shining and faintly smelling of wax, all yours to enjoy right then and there. And if you cook—that creation you lift from the oven goes right to the table.”

“You know, you got to get the devil out the house 'fore you can clean it up!”

“I get tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good. What kind of talk is that? I know a place in Payette, Idaho, where a cook and a waitress and a manager put everything they've got into laying a chicken-fried steak on you.”