The fashion industry is no more able to preserve a style that men and women have decided to abandon than to introduce one they do not choose to accept.

Real literature, like travel, is always a surprise.

Grosvenor and Burke suggest that continually, though silently, a school building tells students who they are and how they should think about the world. It can help to manufacture rote obedience or independent activity; it can create high self-confidence or low self-esteem.

We can lie in the language of dress or try ot tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent.

There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. the kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun.

America has a history of political isolation and economic self-sufficiency; its citizens have tended to regard the rest of the world as a disaster area from which lucky or pushy people emigrate to the Promised Land.

As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future.