“Not many women got to live out the daydream of women—to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself.”

“So many of the conscious and unconscious ways men and women treat each other have to do with romantic and sexual fantasies that are deeply ingrained not just in society but in literature.The women's movement may manage to clean up the mess in society, but I don't know if it can clean up the mess in our minds.”

“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly." ~ (1919-), American writer, producer, humorist. ”

“Her room felt wonderful to her, as usual. She looked around with satisfaction… She imagined to herself that she would always live this way, even after she had grown up and moved away from her family. She planned to have exactly the same room wherever she was, because this room was her. No matter what happened out there in the rest of the world, she felt totally comfortable once she got into this room and closed the door.”

“She had the scattered feeling she always got when events conspired to mess things up, and nothing exhausted and frustrated her more than a mess she was incapable of fixing.”

“That's how we women deal with stuff. We spit it all out, kind of like a hairball, and then we clean up the mess and move on.”