The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. – Mark Twain, attributed

The worst of a modern stylish mansion is that it has no place for ghosts. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Poet at the Breakfast Table, 1872

It is the land of perpetual pubescence, where cultural lag is mistaken for renaissance. – Ashley Montagu, about California

I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun, and then you continue on. In most of the world, it is known as the biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter. – Michael Ventre, L.A. Daily News