“Excuse me, but aren't boys forbidden on this floor?' Macey said on our way to the suite.'That's the advantage of being the only boy,' he (Zach) said. 'No one actually comes right out and makes rules like that.”

“But boys will be boys, even the ones who are only girls dressed up: That's one of the rules of the world.”

“that's right," the fox said. For me you're only a little boy just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need for you. And you have no need for me,either. For you I'm only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we'll need each other. You'll be the only boy in the world for me. I'll be the only fox in the world for you...”

“When he woke, daylight was coming through the glass floor, and a boy's voice said, "Oh...You are in so much trouble.”

“This going around with boys makes me sick," said Tacy."I like Herbert Humphreys," said Tib.It was just like Tib to like a boy and say so."Oh, if you have to have a boy around, it might as well be Herbert," said Betsy, who liked him too."He wears cute clothes," said Tacy, blushing.Herbert Humphreys, who had come to Deep Valley from St. Paul, wore knickerbockers. The other boys in their grade wore plain short pants.”

“In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn't it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That's why that's sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it...”