“I think that your sister is awful. I think it's disgusting-a woman acting like a grease-monkey and posing around like a big executive. It's so unfeminine. Who does she think she is, anyway?”

“...I met a reverend mother once who cried...ah, it's all so sad' - 'What did she cry about?' - 'I don't know, after talking to me, I remember I said some silly thing like "the universe is a woman because it's round" but I think she cried because she was remembering her early days when she had a romance with some soldier who died, at least that's what they say, she was the greatest woman I ever saw, big blue eyes, big smart woman ... you could do that, get out of this awful mess and leave it all behind”

“I think," Ella said, "that what a woman does or doesn't do should be up to the woman, and she should make up her own mind and not change it when the wind starts to blow. I think a woman should be who she is, not what others expect her to be. And if she wants to go to a dance looking for a man, she should go and not feel like she has to explain herself. And if she want to have her own farm, she should do that and not feel like she has to explain that, either. And…I think you should be quiet now.”

“Last time I talked to her she didn't sound like herself. She's depressed. It's awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they're no good.”

“Ten Commandments:I asked her why she never told us about the Ten Commandments & she said she wasn't ever that good with numbers so she loved everything as best she could & I remember thinking who needs all those rules anyway with a mother like her around.”

“I have an apple that thinks its a pear. And a bun that thinks it’s a cat. And a lettuce that thinks its a lettuce.""It’s a clever lettuce, then.""Hardly," she said with a delicate snort. "Why would anything clever think it’s a lettuce?""Even if it is a lettuce?" I asked."Especially then," she said. "Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too.”