“Interesting' people were her favorite hobby. She collected them: the type who did gay things late at night and smoked cigarettes in mixed company, those would have most scandalized her own mother.”

“Among her other talents were forgetting what she did not like and ignoring what she preferred not to see.”

“Recurrent memories of Henry Schoonmaker were the most exciting thing to happen in her conscious mind these days.”

“A young woman, newly wed, may find herself in the delightful position of wanting to do nothing without the company of her darling husband. She may indeed discover that she spends all her waking hours with her fellow to the exclusion of every other friend or family member. This is understandable, but wholly unacceptable, to society.”

“Even when a girl is married she still never completely leaves her mother and father's home.”

“Though her emotions had not deviated from a jittery frailty she knew that in her own room she could at least attempt sleep and that if she dreamed she might then finally be with Henry.”

“Elizabeth who was only partially visible to her stared out the window very much awake as though she were contemplating the end of man.”