A quote from Natalie Goldberg

I heard someone say that place is the third character in a novel — that’s how much power it has. Faulkner and Tennessee Williams cannot be separated from the South; Steinbeck belongs forever to California; Willa Cather eats Nebraska and the states below it; Carl Sandburg lives in Chicago; Edith Wharton has New York.

– Natalie Goldberg, Long Quiet Highway