“Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.”

“We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved of the medical profession that seems to be a synonym for agony that isn't yours.”

“Wasn't there only one respectable memento of a man worth keeping, the kind that draws Valentines and learns to spell Mississippi?”

“Casting my own eye down Fifth Avenue as my belly swelled, I would register with incredulity: Every one of these people came from a woman's cunt.”

“I may have spent long enough in your orbit to have absorbed your ferocious conviction that a happy family cannot be a mere myth or that even if it is, better to die trying for the fine if unattaina...”

“I came to regard my body in a new light. For the first time I apprehended the little mounds on my chest as teats for the suckling of young, and their physical resemblance to udders on cows or the s...”

“Even in times of today, when one does not feel the need to go out of one's way for someone else, there are people who would. There are people who would be good to someone, share a smile with someon...”

“I thought she had a good heart, though not much respectability- or maybe it was because of that.”

“I thought she had a good heart, though not much respectability- or maybe it was because of that.”

“Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.”

“The tendency to trust easily anyone gives way to a certain vulnerability.”

“Face after face contorted in hate, men, women, children. Whatever lies had been voiced against me had clearly gained near-universal acceptance. I knew then that, regardless of what transpired here,...”

“Naught but leaves brushed in the wind, stemming from the forest behind my house. Oh, and of course, the wildlife seized every chance to tell the stars who they were; they hooted, howled, and growle...”

“I dont have a philosophy: I have senses...If I talk about Nature, its not because I know what it is,But because I love it, and thats why I love it,Because when you love you never know what you love...”

“I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked.""We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will ...”