“In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak.”

“Boomer had asked her once, in a telephone call from Virginia, “Why does this stuff, these hand-painted hallucinations that don’t do nothin’ but confuse the puddin’ out of a perfectly reasonable wall, why does it mean so much to you?” It was a poor connection, but he could have sworn he heard her say, “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.”

“Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.”

“Art is a house that tries to be haunted.”

“Before she knew it, she was just another set of eyes in a dusty attic, waiting for the stairs to creak.”

“It's just because I love the past that I want this house to look back on its glamourous moment of youth and beauty, and I want its stairs to creak as if to the footsteps of women with hoop skirts and men in boots and spurs. But they've made it into a blondined, rouged-up old woman of sixty.”