"Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time.
Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time.
Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time.
It's time we gave this some thought."

R. Buckminster Fuller

"Still, it's interesting to read, if only for the chance to experience a blind date between J.D. Salinger and Sarah Orne Jewett."

online comment about Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge

"And how is it that students at Southern Maine Community College have unfettered access to long-fermented water-boiled bagels, when I have none?"

NYTimes article about the lively food scene in Portland

"As our ferryboat from Denmark made its way up the winding Oslo Fjord in May 1959, we looked at the granite boulders and high cliffs covered with pine tress, sniffed the cool, salty-piney air, and said to each other: 'Norway is just like Maine!' Which it was, and wasn't."

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme