“Grandma Harper has two green bottles shaped like women with black hair painted on their heads and a yellow glass colored captain's hat that she keeps her face powder in that I want too, and a picture of a naked girl in a swing, swinging way up in the air over castles in a blue sky.I don't know why I want those things, I just do.”

“Lately, it had been an endless procession of long, black nights and gray mornings, when her sense of failure swept over her like a five-hundred-pound wave; and she was scared. But it wasn't death that she feared. She had looked down into that black pit of death and had wanted to jump in, once too often. As a matter of fact, the thought began to appeal to her more and more.She even knew how she would kill herself. It would be with a silver bullet. As round and as smooth as an ice-cold blue martini. She would place the gun in the freezer for a few hours before she did it, so it would feel frosty and cold against her head. She could almost feel the ice-cold bullet shooting through her hot, troubled brain, freezing the pain for good. The sound of the gun blast would be the last sound she would ever hear. And then... nothing. Maybe just the silent sound that a bird might hear, flying in the clean, cool air, high above the earth. The sweet, pure air of freedom.No, it wasn't death she was afraid of. It was this life of hers that was beginning to remind her of that gray intensive care waiting room.”

“I found out I got ringworm from Felix. If it gets in my head, they will have to shave off my hair. I'll be bald just like Eisenhower, and I am a Democrat.”

“I just know there's an albino living in the colored quarters. I can feel it in my bones.”

“I knew I wasn't the picture of health, but I didn't think I was headed for the last roundup.”

“I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be with.”

“It was a stretch to imagine that Barbara Walters might want to give it all up for Ed Couch, but Evelyn tried her hardest. Of course, even though she was not religious, it was a comfort to know that the Bible backed her up in being a doormat.”