"imagine that noah knocked his house apart and used the planks to build an ark, while his neighbors looked on, full of doubt. a house, he must have told them, should be daubed with pitch and built to float cloud high, if need be. a lettuce patch was of no use at all, and a good foundation was worse than useless. a house should have a compass and a keel. the neighbors would have put their hands in their pockets and chewed their lips and strolled home to houses they now found wanting in ways they could not understand."
housekeeping, p. 184
housekeeping, p. 184
