“The story rolls along like drumbeats from house to house.”

“The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles a hour wind had loosed his chains. He seized hold of his dikes and ran forward until he met the quarters; uprooted them like grass and rushed on after his supposed-to-be conquerors, rolling the dikes, rolling the houses, rolling the people in the houses along with other timbers. The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel.”

“When we turned right on Thirty-fifth Street our suffix came along. By the time we rolled to the curb in front of Wolfe's house there wasn't even hyphen between us.”

“I can see we're going to get along like a house on fire," said Miss Tick. "There may be no survivors.”

“Like everyone else in the house, she suffers from dreams.”

“Emile was not like you, not attached to houses. For you, houses are like people, are they not, they have a soul, a heart, they live and breathe. Houses remember.”