“Truth is worse than soap in the eyes.”

“I'm an old man now. Old on the inside. I'm a drunk, and I hate to tell you, but I'm not prepared to change. So you have to figure out if you want to forgive me and love me like I am, or run away ag...”

“You really are a chameleon, aren't you? Fitting in wherever you go."Aren't we all?" she said...”

“The kitchen of the Big House was always one of my favorite places. Airy and sunny. No modern cabinets or anything like that. Just a room full of windows, set into wise, worn walls.”

“The kitchen door, painted red from the day Naomi moved in, and a geranium, also red, outside on the stoop, gave the whole area a feeling of whimsy.”

“You'll be just fine," he said. "Listen to your heart and mind together, that's the trick. Not one or the other, both.”

“The women of the South have brought into American literature a unique mixture of domesticity and grotesquerie.”

“I like indoor Christmas trees. And I like people who decorate their homes with lights and all that crap. I think it's a healthy outlet for them. If they weren't covering their lawns with twinkling ...”

“I'm still a Chicagoan in the fact that I can't do Christmas with sand and palm trees. It just doesn't compute - it's not Christmas unless your face hurts when you step outside.”

“Being half Jewish, we grew up with Christmas trees but had Jewish ornaments.”