“we're all doctors trading sadness for numbnessgrass looks much greener but it's green-painted cementthe mayor's machines are there cleaning the pavementyou can't make dirt clean so we'll just lemon-scent it”
“The scent of book leather and lemons enveloped him, and his head went light. Books and clean woman. Had God ever divined a more perfect perfume?”
“When you mix dirt with water, the dirt doesn't get clean. The water just gets dirty.”
“It's so beautiful at this hour. The sun is low, the shadows are long, the air is cold and clean. You won't be awake for another five hours, but I can't help feeling that we're sharing this clear and beautiful morning.”
“Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself.”
“For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap-and-lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening of the cheeks.”