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It's the middle of May but I felt like I was lying in a freezer.

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Page 17)

Now I'm sure you're wondering something. Is it just coincidence that this cold water predicament of mine also appears in this chapter? Not at all. Zampanò only wrote "heater." The word "water" back there- I added that. Now there's an admission, eh? Hey, not fair, you cry. Hey, hey, fuck you, I say. Wow, am I mad right now. Clearly a nerve's been hit somewhere but I don't know how, why, or by what. I sure don't believe it's because of some crummy made-up story or a lousy (water) heater. Can't follow the feeling. If only any of it were true. I mean we'd all be so lucky to wind up a punching bag and still find our crates full of Birds of Paradise. No such luck with this crate. Let the cold water run. It's gotta warm up eventually. Right?

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Page 16)

I got up this morning to take a shower and guess what? No fucking hot water.

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Page 12)

"Does that scare you?" Chad nods. "Why?" asks his father. "It's like something's waiting." "What?" Chad shrugs. "I dunno Daddy. I just like the sound of traffic."

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

However, unlike Zampanò, this wasn't about smell, this was about space. I wanted a closed, inviolate and most of all immutable space. At least the measuring tapes should have helped. They didn't. Nothing did.

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

I think now if someone had said be careful, we would have. I know a moment came when I felt certain its resolute blackness was capable of anything, maybe even of slashing out, tearing up the floor, murdering Zampanò, murdering us, maybe even murdering you. And then the moment passed.

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Whatever orders the path of all my yesterdays was strong enough that night to draw me past all those sleepers kept safely at bay from the living, locked behind their sturdy doors, until I stood at the end of the hall facing the last door on the left, an unremarkable door too, but still a door to the dead.

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

I should have turned around right then. I should have known something was up, at the very least sensed the consequence lingering in the air, in the hour, in Lude's stare, in all of it, and fuck, I must have been some kind of moron to have been oblivious to all those signs. The way Lude's keys rattled like bone-chimes as he opened the main gate; the hinges suddenly shrieking as if we weren't entering a crowded building but some ancient moss-eaten crypt. Or the way we padded down the dank hallway, buried in shadows, lamps above hung with spangles of light that I swear now must have been the work of gray, primitive spiders. Or probably most important of all, the way Lude whispered when he told me things, things I couldn't give a damn about back then but now, now, well my nights would be a great deal shorter if I didn't have to remember them.

— House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski