The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and read more

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

The worst thing about work in the house or home is that whatever you do is destroyed, laid waste or read more

The worst thing about work in the house or home is that whatever you do is destroyed, laid waste or eaten within twenty four hours.

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby read more

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.

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.

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 house a woman creates is a Utopia. She can't help it -- can't help trying to interest her nearest read more

The house a woman creates is a Utopia. She can't help it -- can't help trying to interest her nearest and dearest not in happiness itself but in the search for it.

Go big or go home. Because it's true. What do you have to lose?

Go big or go home. Because it's true. What do you have to lose?

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home

"Home" is any four walls that enclose the right person.

"Home" is any four walls that enclose the right person.