“If you sweep a house, and tend its fires and fill its stove, and there is love in you all the years you are doing this, then you and that house are married, that house is yours.”

“It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year.”

“As long as you live, there's always something waiting; and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living.”

“Once a thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it won't. Or will-depending. As long as you live, there’s always something waiting, and even if it’s bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can’t stop living.”

“I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.”

“I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.”

“I suppose you think I'm very brazen. Or très fou. Or something.'Not at all.'She seemed disappointed. 'Yes, you do. Everybody does. I don't mind. It's useful.”