We're used to being powerless in this country. Then a group of small towns stands up and says, 'We do not agree, and we'll do everything we can to stop you.

There is a comfortable feeling in small towns. It is salubrious.

Admittedly, they [(places in novels)] didn't all have such ridiculous names as the ones in the Piddle Valley where her father's group of parishes was centered. It would have been hard to make credible a romantic fiction set in Farleigh Piddle, Middle Piddle, Nether Piddle and Piddle Dummer.

When I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I was so struck by the universality of small towns.

In small towns people scent the wind with noses of uncommon keenness.

Whether or not a house stands with her or not through it says more about the house than it does about her.