“No – ” his hands came together on the table – “it was one of the first antiques I ever bought, thirty years ago. In an American Folk sale. I’m not a great one for the folk art, never have been – this piece, not of the first quality, doesn’t fit with anything else I own, and yet isn’t it always the inappropriate thing, the thing that doesn’t quite work, that’s oddly the dearest?”

“No – ” his hands came together on the table – “it was one of the first antiques I ever bought, thirty years ago. In an American Folk sale. I’m not a great one for the folk art, never have been – this piece, not of the first quality, doesn’t fit with anything else I own, and yet isn’t it always the inappropriate thing, the thing that doesn’t quite work, that’s oddly the dearest?”

— Donna Tartt