Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter.

Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter.

I've read in many a novel, that unless they've souls that
grovel--
Folks prefer in fact a hovel read more

I've read in many a novel, that unless they've souls that
grovel--
Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Estate agents. You can't live with them, you can't live with them. The first sign of these nasty purulent sores read more

Estate agents. You can't live with them, you can't live with them. The first sign of these nasty purulent sores appeared round about 1894. With their jangling keys, nasty suits, revolting beards, moustaches and tinted spectacles, estate agents roam the land causing perturbation and despair. If you try and kill them, you're put in prison: if you try and talk to them, you vomit. There's only one thing worse than an estate agent but at least that can be safely lanced, drained and surgically dressed. Estate agents. Love them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.

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.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered read more

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.