When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that read more

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my read more

I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house.

A house is not a home.

A house is not a home.

A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.

A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.

The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest read more

The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.

For a man's house is his castle.

For a man's house is his castle.

Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes read more

Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes on you. A certain set of buildings, a glimpsed, smudged window-view across a schoolyard, a musty aroma sniffed behind a garage when you were a child, all of which come crowding in upon your latter-day senses -- those are pungent things and vivid, even consoling. But to me they are also inert and nostalgic and unlikely to connect you to the real, to that essence art can sometimes achieve, which is permanence.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
read more

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land.

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the read more

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.