Mansion Quotes & Sayings

Is there a place, save one the poet sees, A land of love, of liberty, and ease; Where labour wearies not, nor cares suppress Th' eternal flow of rustic happiness; Where no proud mansion frowns in awful state, Or keeps the sunshine from the cottage-gate; Where young and old, intent on pleasure, throng, And half man's life is holiday and song? Vain search for scenes like these! no view appears, By sighs unruffled or unstain'd by tears; Since vice the world subdued and waters drown'd, Auburn and Eden can no more be found. — George Crabbe

Wealth for its own sake is an empty shell. Wealth that includes making other people's lives better will reward you even more than the beautiful mansion you live in. — Gene Simmons

mansion that sits upon a hill just outside the sleepy little — Willow Wisp

Some people, of course, can be happier with the cars, the fancy threads, the hilltop mansion, and the other status symbols of 'having made it', but I found that several of my most prized possessions were slipping away, despite all the fortune I had amassed. — George Harrison

From the ghetto to the mansion, from community leader to prisoner on death row, man wonders if there is a God. And if there is, what is He like? Whatever period of history we study, whatever culture we examine, if we look back in time we see all peoples, primitive or modern, acknowledging some kind of deity. Some people give up the pursuit of God in frustration, calling themselves "atheists" or "agnostics," professing to be irreligious. — Billy Graham

I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way ... But lo! men have become the tools of their tools ... We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. — Henry David Thoreau

How does a woman gain such wisdom in only twenty-nine years?" Gordon asked, escorting her across the lawns toward the mansion.
"The same way a man does."
"Which is?"
Lady Keely cast him an ambiguous smile. "Either you are born with wisdom, my lord, or you make do
without it ... — Patricia Grasso

Can storied urn, or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death? — Thomas Gray

When I was 2, we moved into an imposing country mansion 8 miles west of Cardiff, Wales. — Roald Dahl

look as if they had been plucked from the Palace of Versailles or a Jacobean mansion - that you were aboard a ship being propelled far into the bluest reaches of the ocean. — Erik Larson

Directly down the lawn and accross the Ellipse from the White House are those ordered, classic lines of the Jefferson Memorial and the eyes of the 19-foot statue that gaze directly into the White House, a reminder to any of us who might occupy that mansion of the quality of mind and generosity of heart that once abided there and has been so rarely seen there again. — Ronald Reagan

There is no more reason to believe that man descended from some inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage. — William Jennings Bryan

When hip-hop was born she had no commercial home, and was an invention of beautiful creativity. Born from a beautiful struggle, today she is mostly a 'ratchet' bitch spitting nonsense from her pimp's mansion. — T.F. Hodge

Theban who acquires his wealth by inheritance builds his mansion with the weak poor's money. The clergyman erects his temple upon the graves and bones of the devoted worshippers. The prince grasps the fellah's arms while the priest empties his pocket; the ruler looks upon the sobs of the fields with frowning face, and the bishop consoles them with his smile, and between the frown of the tiger and the smile of the wolf the flock is perished; the ruler claims himself as king if the law, and the priest as the representative if god, and between these two, the bodies are destroyed and the souls wither into nothing. — Kahlil Gibran

If the prosperity of megachurches was parallel to the prosperity of the people in the community they were in, there would be less to judge them for. But what is the point of a million-dollar mansion surrounded by shacks? What is the point of a billionaire whose closest friends are destitute? Far — Luvvie Ajayi

Since in the centre of the soul there is a mansion reserved for God Himself ... — Teresa Of Avila

The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed within. Were these to be worthily recounted, they would form a narrative of no small interest and instruction, and possessing, moreover, a certain remarkable unity, which might almost seem the result of artistic arrangement. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

We seem to be young, in a very old Galaxy. We're like kids tiptoeing through a ruined mansion. — Stephen Baxter

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, such as i am. Though for myself alone I would not be ambitious in my wish to wish myself much better, yet for you I would be trebled twenty times myself, a thousand times more rich, that only to stand high in your accunt I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, exceed account. But the full sum of me is sum of something, which, to term in gross, is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticed; happy in this, she is not yet so old but she may learn; happier than this, she is not bred so dull but she can learn; happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit commits itself to yours to be idrected as from her lord, her governor, her king. Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours is now converted. But now I was the lord of this fair mansion, master of my servants, queen o'er myself; and even now, but now, this house, these servants, and this same myself are yours, my lord's. I give them. — William Shakespeare

Chanel lambskin, vintage Vanson I'm on the bike doing wheelies in a mansion — Nicki Minaj

Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted power to bring before him the place where she found it and the night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there? On the waste where the brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind, where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of human torture - traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at the great door of the Dedlock mansion. — Charles Dickens

The sea is a spirit level, a pantry, a playground, a mansion rowdy with life, a majestic reminder of our origins, another kind of body (a body of water), and female because of her monthly tides. But her bones are growing brittle, her brine turning ever more acidic from all the CO2 we've slathered into the air and all the fertilizer runoff from our fields. — Diane Ackerman

We were alone in a strange mansion with a baboon, a crocodile, and a weird cat. And apparently, the entire world was in danger.
I looked at Sadie. What do we do now? — Rick Riordan

Moon is a shining ball,
from the window on my wall.

Moon is blemish-laden,
from the terrace of my mansion.

Moon is a cold flame,
from the porthole of my airplane.

Yet I have heard,
Moon is muse to philosophy brothers,
Moon is nurse to romantic lovers.
How can it be so various?

Are we not the same?
Or did the Moon really change? — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

The word house didn't begin to do justice for the white and gray structure in front of me. I actually had to tilt my head back to see all the way up to the roof. — Jeaniene Frost

I didn't grow up in a small New England town like the one in 'The Sundial.' I was raised in an apartment building in Queens, not in a sprawling, slightly sinister mansion like the one where the Halloran family resides. — Victor LaValle

Guys, just remember, if you get lucky, if you make a lot of money, if you get out and buy a lot of stuff
it's gonna break. You got your biggest, fanciest mansion in the world. It has air conditioning. It's got a pool. Just think of all the pumps that are going to go out. Or go to a yacht basin any place in the world. Nobody is smiling, and I'll tell you why. Something broke that morning. The generator's out; the microwave oven doesn't work ... Things just don't mean happiness. — Ross Perot

The town, although it had "suffered greatly," was not in as bad shape as he had expected, he wrote to John Hancock, "and I have a particular pleasure in being able to inform you, sir, that your house has received no damage worth mentioning." Other fine houses had been much abused by the British, windows broken, furnishings smashed or stolen, books destroyed. But at Hancock's Beacon Hill mansion all was in order, as General Sullivan also attested, and there was a certain irony in this, since the house had been occupied and maintained by the belligerent General James Grant, who had wanted to lay waste to every town on the New England coast. "Though I believe," wrote Sullivan, "the brave general had made free with some of the articles in the [wine] cellar. — David McCullough

The innocent mansion of a panther's heart! — Allen Tate

Wisdom! To leave his wife, to leave his babes,
His mansion and his titles, in a place
From whence himself does fly? He loves us not.
He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear and nothing is the love,
As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason — William Shakespeare

He lived in a mansion, but in a shrunken world. — Khaled Hosseini

I told Hugh Hefner, "I have this crazy boyfriend." And Hef was like, "You're not going anywhere with a crazy boyfriend," and so he put me in a mansion in Bel-Air with an opera singing Chinese maid, and I was driving a Bentley, and a friend of mine came by and was like, "What is going on? Why are you living in this mansion?" And I was like, "Isn't this what happens when people move to LA? — Pamela Anderson

I have commenced my auspicious reign and am in quiet possession of the Presidential Mansion ... this winter I intend to do something in the way of entertaining that shall be the admiration and talk of all Washington world. — Julia Gardiner Tyler

Wrath was in a bad mood, and he knew this because the sound of the doggen waxing the wooden balustrade at the top of the main staircase was making him want to light the whole fucking mansion on fire. — J.R. Ward

I was a full-blown street cat. I was trying to hustle my way. I thought I was going to hustle my way to a mansion or something. I was doing pretty good, but I didn't realize that there was no way to win that game. — Ice-T

Gardette-LePrete Mansion is — Hector Z. Gregory

A person will struggle - she'll fight. She'll do just about anything to avoid making a decision she knows she has to make. We have got to be the most perverse creatures on the planet. Something in the human enjoys misery. It keeps us locked away, some in a mansion, some in a hovel. But then, one day - a day you don't plan, an hour you don't expect - the door opens. You have what you need, or you receive your answer. It's so obvious, and so right, and you even have the wherewithal to carry out what you need to carry out. A big angel with flaming eyes and burnished hair might as well have walked through the wall . . . — Donna Salli

I went to a party at the Playboy Mansion once. For a Halloween Party. And everyone wasn't in costume, or if they were they were little bunnies or something, and I went as Michael Jackson. — January Jones

Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, lives in a mansion that uses more electricity than the average family's bungalow! David Suzuki rides on a bus that uses more fuel than a Smart car to get across Canada! Oh my God! And this is just the tip of the vanishing iceberg! — Linwood Barclay

All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon sand. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The mansion should not be graced by its master, the master should grace the mansion. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Anxiety and stress-related mental dysfunction is the plague of modern-day society. Millions of people are tormented by anxious thinking and the consequent distress this brings, irrespective of whether they live in a mansion or a bed-sit or whether they earn millions or are living on the breadline. This would indicate that external circumstances cannot prevent or cause pathological anxiety or free people from negative emotions. — Christopher Dines

Out of the ruined lodge and forgotten mansion, bowers that are trodden under foot, and pleasure-houses that are dust, the poet calls up a palingenesis. — Thomas De Quincey

The town had a faint air of benign neglect that only added to its charm: a seaside village with white clapboard buildings, seagulls wheeling overhead, uneven brick sidewalks and local shops. They passed a gas station, several old storefronts with plate-glass windows, a diner, a funeral parlor, a movie theater turned into a bookstore, and an eighteenth-century sea captain's mansion, complete with widow's walk. A sign out front identified it as the Exmouth Historical Society and Museum. — Douglas Preston

Since life is a dream I think I'll stop eating and drinking so much
do some ethereal daydreaming instead
go in the mansion of the mind and close all the doors, as if I was traveling in the back of a bus for 4 days & 4 nights, broke. — Jack Kerouac

Jacque rolled her eyes. "Jen you were screaming at the top of your lungs that it wasn't fair that you had to give up your perky rack, and you were sick of your nipples feeling as though they had been stuck in a pencil sharpener while salt was poured on them."
"How do you even know that? I was at the Serbian pack mansion when I had my moment.," Jen growled.
"Your mate put you on speaker phone," Sally said trying not to laugh. — Quinn Loftis

I remember when I was probably about ten years old I had a pen pal, and writing letters back and forth with him was one of my favorite things to do. His name was Steve and he lived in one of those huge mansions that's so big it has a name. It was called the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and he told me it was even bigger than the mayor's mansion. We'd send letters back and forth and he'd ask me to send him my favorite books and small pieces of metal or wood that were lying around and all the money I could find in my house. And I'd gather them all up and put cute little stickers of cats on the packages and send them away. It was so fun. Eventually we stopped writing because I moved to another city and he moved out to live on his own. He called it "solitary confinement." I was always so impressed by his vocabulary. — Ellen DeGeneres

And the purple parted before it, snapping back like skin after a slash, and what it let out wasn't blood but light: amazing orange light that filled her heart and mind with a terrible mixture of joy, terror, and sorrow. No wonder she had repressed this memory all these years. It was too much. Far too much. The light seemed to give the fading air of evening a silken texture, and the cry of a bird struck her ear like a pebble made of glass. A cap of breeze filled her nostrils with a hundred exotic perfumes: frangipani, bougainvillea, dusty roses, and oh dear God, night-blooming cereus ... And rising above one horizon came the orange mansion of the moon, bloated and burning cold, while the sun sank below the other, boiling in a crimson house of fire. She thought that mixture of furious light would kill her with its beauty. — Stephen King

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark. — W.B.Yeats

When, you wonder, does Sarah go west and build her rambling mansion? Not yet. Soon, but not yet. First, her husband has to do a blood-coughing two-step off this mortal coil. — Laird Barron

Diana, would you marry someone for money?" I asked her out of the blue one afternoon during her lunch break. Without missing a beat, she made a contemplative noise. "It depends.How much money?"
It was right then I knew I'd called the wrong person. I should have dialed Oscar, my slightly younger brother, instead. He'd always been wise beyond his years. Diana...not so much.
I only told her the partial truth. "What if someone bought you a house?"
She "hmmed" and then "hmmed" a little more. "A nice house?"
"It wouldn't be a mansion, you greedy whore, but I'm not talking about a dump or anything either." I figured at least. — Mariana Zapata

I believe in that goodly mansion, his heart, he kept one little place under the skylights where Lucy might have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the chambers where he lodged his male friends; it was not like the hall where he accommodated his philanthropy, or the library where he treasured his science, still less did it resemble the pavilion where his marriage feast was splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by long and equal kindness, he proved to me that he kept one little closet, over the door of which was written " Lucy's Room." I kept a place for him, too - a place of which I never took the measure, either by rule or compass: I think it was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I carried it folded in the hollow of my hand - yet, released from that hold and constriction, I know not but its innate capacity for expanse might have magnified it into a tabernacle for a host. — Charlotte Bronte

Behold now this vast city [London]; a city of refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with His protection. — John Milton

Actually for a while Jessica had contemplated making a grand entrance wearing only the dress, thinking wickedly about how the sight of her cold, shivering body would prompt Nicholas to rush up and put his arms around her to warm her up. But evenings at this time of year were usually chilly, and she saw no reason to risk pneumonia just for a sympathy hug. She'd have to settle for throwing her coat off dramatically as she was being ushered into the Morrow mansion. — Francine Pascal

I've never been that person who wants a Rolls Royce or wants to live in a mansion or what have you. — Naomie Harris

I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me. — John Keats

Here's the plan: We do everything, all the traditions, and we do it grander than anyone ever dreamed! Here are the houselights, which will require extra generators so we don't smash the power grid, the holiday music CDs that will need waterproof outdoor concert speakers, the train set with extra boxes of tracks to connect all the rooms of the house, the toys where we forget the batteries, several gingerbread house kits we'll combine to form a mansion, DVDs of all the classic Christmas specials to run nonstop, mistletoe for all the doorways, the manger scene with a little Jesus that glows in the dark to emphasize the Holy Spirit third of the Trinity because he's the shy one who gets the least press, and all the presents we'll wrap together and give each other as Secret Santas. — Tim Dorsey

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln — Abraham Lincoln

Stop saying athletes do it for the love of the game. They do it for the love of their 32-room mansion with the live shark tank in the living room. If pro sports paid minimum wage, Shaquille O'Neal would be a bouncer at Scores, and Anna Kournikova would be a mail-order bride from Minsk. — Bill Maher

Oh, mansion shmansion. Did Gandhi's house have the largest outdoor trampoline in the tristate area? Did Jesus have a two-acre remote-controlled car track, with mountains to scale and a little village that lit up at night?
Not in his Bible. — George Saunders

You think you know the story so well. It's a mansion inside your head, each room just waiting to be described, but pretty much every memoirist I've ever talked to finds the walls of such rooms changing shape around her. There are shattering earthquakes, tectonic-plate-type shifts. Or it's like memory is a snow globe that invariably gets shaken so as to shroud the events inside. — Mary Karr

Life is a mansion of opportunity: love is the key. — Debasish Mridha

A tall young man sped swiftly up the wide stone steps leading to the doorway of a mansion in one of Chicago's most fashionable avenues. — George Barr McCutcheon

Until they stood at last by a crumbling wall, looking up and up and still farther up at the great tombyard top of the old house. For that's what it seemed. The high mountain peak of the mansion was littered with what looked like black bones or iron rods, and enough chimneys to choke out smoke signals from three dozen fires on sooty hearths hidden far below in dim bowels of this monster place. With so many chimneys, the roof seemed a vast cemetery, each chimney signifying the burial place of some old god of fire or enchantress of steam, smoke, and firefly spark. even as they watched, a kind of bleak exhalation of soot breathed up out of some four dozen flues, darkening the sky still more, and putting out some few stars. — Ray Bradbury

Behind them the solemn-faced warriors stood, engraved into the vast double doors of the mansion. In front of them, the fountain lay broken into three large chunks and a mass of smaller rocks, scattered around. — A.O. Peart

I long to see [Jesus] face to face, to hear His voice and touch Him. In the day I go to be with Him, there will be no unfulfilled longings or disappointments. He will welcome me into His mansion, answer my questions, and teach me the wisdom of the ages. — Billy Graham

A Woman who let out a Sigh Outside a Mansion, should Never ask her Husband Why He Works Late — Vineet Raj Kapoor

Jobs described Mike Markkula's maxim that a good company must "impute"- it must convey its values and importance in everything it does, from packaging to marketing. Johnson loved it. It definitely applied to a company's stores. " The store will become the most powerful physical expression of the brand," he predicted. He said that when he was young he had gone to the wood-paneled, art-filled mansion-like store that Ralph Lauren had created at Seventy-second and Madison in Manhattan. " Whenever I buy a polo shirt, I think of that mansion, which was a physical expression of Ralph's ideals," Johnson said. " Mickey Drexler did that with the Gap. You couldn't think of a Gap product without thinking of the Great Gap store with the clean space and wood floors and white walls and folded merchandise. — Walter Isaacson

Each thought is a nail that is driven In structures that cannot decay; And the mansion at last will be given To us as we build it each day. — George Eliot

I got invited to the Playboy Mansion with the Lonely Island guys after their first season on 'SNL,' and I sat in the corner drinking coffee and talking to Akiva Schaffer about what aspect ratio he was going to shoot 'Hot Rod' in. Like, that's what we talk about. — Bill Hader

I think maybe ten years from now, I'm hopefully going to be, in like, Tahiti or something. Kicking back like in my huge mansion, if everything goes right, it's all up to me. — Corey Haim

When the idea of 'Chopped' surfaced, it was originally meant to be taped at some guy's mansion with him and his crazy Chihuahua. A stuffy fellow in a tuxedo was to host, and the losing chef's dish was then fed to the dog! I am not kidding, I saw it! I think it is genius! Twisted, but genius! — Ted Allen

Why yes he thought it ain't a place a man wants to go back to; the place dont even need to be there no more. What aches a man to go back to is what he remembers.
from ... THE MANSION page 106 — William Faulkner

I live in the same house I've lived in for 25 years. I haven't gone off and bought mansions. Even though my subject is living, living in a mansion wouldn't do for my readers. I have to keep my credibility alive with my readers, so we're in the same place. I just make that place nicer and nicer. And that's a secret. People don't know that. People think, oh, she lives in this fabulous place, but it's the same old place. It started out like a farm, it got to be a farmette, then it got to be an estatelet. I built a wall; it helped a lot. But it's the same place, the same grounded nature. — Martha Stewart

Though this is my first trip to the United Kingdom, I am a proud Anglophile. I admire the practical temperament of the people. I love the artful details of daily life: a hand-stitched tea cozy in the shape of a Victorian mansion, the Wellie boots, the sheep's wool stockings, and the best tailors in the world. — Adriana Trigiani

Like Mardi Gras and Halloween rolled into a public party at the Playboy mansion, Rio during Carnaval is like no other place on earth. And the freak-flags fly like the color guard of an invading army. — James Schannep

Then it came into his heart that he would command men to fashion a hall and a 55 mansion, a mightier house for their mead-drinking than the children of men had ever known, and — Unknown

In Britain, polls show large majorities in favour of mansion taxes and higher taxes on the finance sector. — Geoff Mulgan

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani fired his wife, Donna Hanover, as official hostess of the mayor's mansion last weekend. He's got his own idea of what a hostess should be. He wants a little cupcake. — Argus Hamilton

When a guy gets elected to the Senate or the governor's mansion, he wakes up the next morning and says to himself, 'You're presidential material,' — Geraldine Ferraro

This quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies,
And Lads and Girls;
Was laughter and ability and sighing,
And frocks and curls.
This passive place a Summer's nimble mansion,
Where Bloom and Bees
Fulfilled their Oriental Circuit,
Then ceased like these. — Emily Dickinson

Imagine the spirit as a mansion. You'll guess we don't use many rooms. Apart from a few moments in childhood we don't dance around it in sunlight. But there's a traffic of things in and out, and what happens is that unwanted bulks can gather inside. Gather and gather, menacing us. Unable to shift them, we hide in ever-smaller spaces. And in our last hole, life offers a choice: to play out our demise in parallel theatres - psychosis, zealotry, religion, cancer, addiction - or to bow quietly out. But beware: life doesn't ask these high questions when we're confident and fresh - it waits for hopelessness. — D.B.C. Pierre

While we were being bombed in Dresden sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one soldier said as though he were a duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.' Nobody laughed, but we were still all glad he said it. At least we were still alive! He proved it. — Kurt Vonnegut

Sometimes, I think I could have been a major movie star with the vast mansion and staff. I look at my Volvo and think it could be a limousine. I think of the roles I turned down. But then I wouldn't have had any children. — Kristin Scott Thomas

Minutes pass, and between the minutes, June is slashing out the possibilities. She is narrowing her sister's life down to its essentials. The first to go is the vet's office where May might have worked, which is a loss, but the next to go is the mansion that May has been inside of in her dreams, a terrible, vast, cold place where the pictures are old and of other families. And so it is a relief to see it go, slashed out, burned to the ground with the hot friction of June's pencil. Then there is the loss of all possible sons, which is a tremendous relief, and then the crossing out of husbands, one by one, save one. — Emily Ruskovich

He's a tremendous breath of fresh air. The things he [Pope Francis] has done in a short period of time: the fact that he does not live in a huge papal mansion and just dropped by in the dining room where ordinary people have meals. You think of his background, where he didn't use limousines in South America, that he used public transport. I'm so, so thrilled that he is there at this crucial moment in the history of our world. — Desmond Tutu

you're the fly on the wall hearing all, seeing all

ears of a wall hearing all the secrets

perhaps you're the vines creeping over

the old abandoned mansion walls

dusty, soulless and dead

bringing a certain curious life to rubble

and I think you're the jewel-eyed gecko

sneaking around the warm summer walls

between jasmine and olive branches

sticky pad toes, clinging to the walls

peeking in at lonely summer spicy love-making

through silk curtains from the bright orient

breathing in incense and tasting decadence

climbing the sharply barbed walls

the smooth cemented white-washed walls

because walls breathe too — Moonshine Noire

And yet, though desirous to be gone, she could not quit the mansion-house, or look an adieu to the cottage, with its black, dripping and comfortless veranda, or even notice through the misty glasses the last humble tenements of the village, without a saddened heart. Scenes had passed in Uppercross which made it precious. It stood the record of many sensations of pain, once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear. She left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had been. — Jane Austen

I found when I followed the driveway around to the back that behind its imposing front it was just another tract house, as if the architect had tried to combine a southern plantation mansion with the slave quarters. — Ross Macdonald

Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her. — John Muir

Most people have died before they expire; died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

When Martha gets out she'll be under house arrest in her big $40 million mansion in Bedford. Boy, that'll teach her. She's only allowed out of the house for doctors visits, grocery shopping, or to dump more stock. — David Letterman

I do remember with great pleasure, if not terribly clearly, a play by Richard Foreman with music by Stanley Silverman called Hotel For Criminals, which I saw in a sinisterly suitable mansion in the cultured wilds of western Massachusetts in the summer of 1974, and which could be described as based loosely on Fantomas. — Edward Gorey

Again, after a blank moment, there would be a flickering taper-gleam in his eyeballs. It betokened that his spiritual part had returned, and was doing its best to kindle the heart's household fire, and light up intellectual lamps in the dark and ruinous mansion, where it was doomed to be a forlorn inhabitant. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

If a great mansion is located in a wrong environment, it loses its real value! So it is, when a great and true genius fails to get the right stage, its real value is least seen! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

A person can be miserable in a mansion and happy in a shack."

"Money will not buy happiness. It's merly the lack of it that can cause much of our misery. — Leon Forte

My childhood was great, my family was great. I wasn't in a mansion, but we made it work. — Rita Ora

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call Earth. — John Milton

Walt also had a humorous sign posted outside the mansion, recruiting ghosts who wanted to enjoy 'active retirement' in the "country club atmosphere' of this 'fashionable address'. Interested ghosts were to write to the 'Ghost Relations Dept. Disneyland,' and were told,'Do not apply in person. — Leslie Le Mon

I want to spend the night alone in a haunted mansion. I wouldn't say I'm sceptical because that word implies the truth is out there when there is no truth out there. — Aidan Turner