How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I was happy in Battle Mountain. We'd been there for nearly a year, and I considered it home—the first real home I could remember. (2.20.2)
Here is Jeannette's answer to the question about how long you need to live in a place before it's a home. Jeannette considers Battle Mountain a home after one year. However, she is only five or six at this point, so a year is about 20% of her entire life.
Quote #5
The house also had termites. […] We'd have to coexist with the critters. So we walked around the hole in the living room floor. (2.22.52)
The house starts to reflect the family itself—you know, it's falling apart. Doesn't get much more in-your-face symbolic than that. The Walls family itself also has a lot of holes in it, but the family members walk around them as if they don't exist, and they never try to fix them.
Quote #6
"We may not agree with all of Erma's views," [Mom] said, "but we have to remember that as long as we're her guests, we have to be polite." (3.4.31)
Mom seems to change a bit while living with Erma. She would rather be in this stable location, even if it's toxic, than keep moving around every few months. Mom's cosmic laziness really does get in the way of her being, you know, a decent mom.