“Sympathizing over the behavior of men is the baking soda of women's friendships, it seems,the thing that makes them bubble and rise.”

“If men only knew, modesty makes women fall in love faster than all the cock-a-doodling in the world.”

“In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to them to feel sorry for themselves.”

“Watching Italians eat (especially men, I have to say) is a form of tourism the books don't tell you about. They close their eyes, raise their eyebrows into accent marks, and make sounds of acute appreciation. It's fairly sexy. Of course I don't know how these men behave at home, if they help with the cooking or are vain and boorish and mistreat their wives. I realized Mediterranean cultures have their issues. Fine, don't burst my bubble. I didn’t want to marry these guys, I just wanted to watch. (p. 247)”

“I stir in bed and the memories rise out of me like a buzz of flies from a carcass. I crave to be rid of them...”

“If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.”

“Memory runs along deep, fixed channels in the brain, like electricity along its conduits; only a cataclysm can make the electrons rear up in shock and slide over into another channel. The human mind seems doomed to believe, as simply as a rooster believes, that where we are now is the only possibility”