“Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.”

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord builds the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.”

“It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls”

“The oyster was an animal worthy of New Orleans, as mysterious and private and beautiful as the city itself. If one could accept that oysters build their houses out of their lives, one could imagine the same of New Orleans, whose houses were similarly and resolutely shuttered against an outside world that could never be trusted to show proper sensitivity toward the oozing delicacies within.”

“Sometimes you build up these walls, you build and you build and you build up these walls and you think they’re so strong, but then someone can come along and tip them over with only his fingers, or the weight of his breath.”

“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world; and beyond its world a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you: build, therefore, your own world.”