“Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.”

“Whoever said love conquers all was a fool. Because almost everything conquers love - or tries to.”

“Any piece of furniture, I don't care how beautiful it is, has got to be lived with, and kicked about, and rubbed down, and mistreated..., and repolished, and knocked around and dusted and sat on or slept in or eaten off of before it develops its real character," Selina said.”

“He sat looking down at his hands--his fine strong unscarred hands. Suddenly and unreasonably he thought of another pair of hands--his mother's--with the knuckles enlarged, the skin broken--expressive--her life written on them. Scars. She had them.”

“Big doesn't necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren't better than violets.”

“But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”

“For equipment she had youth, curiosity, a steel strong frame...four hundred ninety-seven dollars; and a gay adventuresome spirit that was never to die, though it led her into curious places and she often found, at the end, only a trackless waste from which she had to retrace her steps, painfully. But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and Burgundy, crysoprase and porphyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”