“In a very cold night, even houses want to have houses of their own to enter inside them and feel warm!”

“Today’s warm houses will be the cold ruins in the very distant future!”

“The rooms of his apartment were full with the dog home again, convalescing. He was satisfied to know, even when she was out of sight, that somewhere in the apartment she was sleeping or eating or sitting watchfully. It was family, he guessed, more or less. Did most people want a house of living things at night, to know that in the dark around them other warm bodies slept?Such a house could even be the whole world.”

“You have grudged the very fire in your house because the wood cost overmuch!" he cried. "You have grudged life. To live cost overmuch, and you have refused to pay the price. Your life has been like a cabin where the fire is out and there are no blankets on the floor." He signaled to a slave to fill his glass, which he held aloft. "But I have lived. And I have been warm with life as you have never been warm. It is true, you shall live long. But the longest nights are the cold nights when a man shivers and lies awake. My nights have been short, but I have slept warm”

“Like Rosaleen and Arthur's house, this had the feel of generations of people who had lived there before, families that had grown up, run and shouted through the hallways, broken things, grown things, fallen in love. Instead of the occupants owning the house, the house owned a part of each of them.”

“To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.”