The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children. The mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.

'A duck!... A baby duck.' (Squealing about a birthday card on her third birthday on Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

'Daddy, how many whoppers are there in those tall trees?' After waking up in the car while driving through Calaveras Big Trees and hearing daddy say, 'Wow, that's a whopper of a tree.'

“This is our house. And this is America Online.” (While pointing at a map of the North American continent.)