‘From the cellar stairs’

Union Village, in Thetford, Vt: Methodist church and defunct School House.

Photo by EdwardEMeyer

“I was happy, but I am now in possession of knowledge that this is wrong. Happiness isn't so bad for a woman. She gets fatter, she gets older, she could lie down, nuzzling a regiment of men and little kids, she could just die of the pleasure. But men are different, they have to own money, or they have to be famous, or everybody on the block has to look up to them from the cellar stairs.”

— Grace Paley (1922-2007), American writer. A native of New York City, she lived in Thetford, Vt., in her later years.

Thetford in 1912.