Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own; this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and torn slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that both houses and people develop unique quirks and eccentricities over time, especially when left alone.
In this quote, Susanna Clarke anthropomorphizes a house, likening it to an old gentleman who has become eccentric due to solitude. The comparison illustrates how both people and their environments can take on characteristics shaped by their experiences, habits, and solitude, emphasizing the idea that places, like people, gain personality over time in their isolation.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about architecture and how buildings reflect their occupants.
But when the fairy sang the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy’s song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.
It is these black clothes," said Strange. "I am like a leftover piece of funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality.
She doesn't do the things heroines are supposed to. Which is rather Jane Austen's point - Fanny is her subversive heroine. She is gentle and self-doubting and utterly feminine; and given the right circumstances, she would defy an army.
I could always imagine more interesting places to be than where I was. And more interesting people than me being there. Eventually, this led to making up stories and writing things down.
All books are doors; and some of them are wardrobes.
The sad souls of those who lived without blame and without praise.
As breath stills our mind, our energies are free to unhook from the senses and bend inward.
I became aware of how the world is and how the white establishment plays black people against each other.
So the blind will lead the blind, and the deaf shout warnings to one another until their voices are lost.
Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way._x000D_ Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass... And then you see it._x000D_ Pippin: What? Gandalf?... See what?_x000D_ Gandalf: White shores... and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise._x000D_ Pippin: Well, that isn't so bad._x000D_ Gandalf: No... No it isn't.
Man is an imperceptible atom always trying to become one with God.
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