“She does not flinch from the caress, because she feels very strong. She walks everywhere she goes but is never tired.”

“She didn't want to have anything to do with the party. She was tired of feeling like she didn't fit in, but she didn't want to go home, either, because she was a tired of being lonely and she was a little drunk.”

“She is in love, she craves sugar, eats a dried apricot, another. All at once she is really tired. She will not wait any longer for Romain and goes to bed. She is not guilty because, she keeps telling herself, thrilled, she had no say in it. She falls asleep immediately.”

“But dammit, she was tired. Tired of doing what was expected, tired of feeling like she was missing something.”

“It is because they are so strong that she hides her feelings.”

“It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She is very big and she has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place, not very lively, and never gay. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.”