“-why had she found the story so absorbing? Of course it was quite possible she hadn't. Maybe she merely preferred a novel--any novel--to reading a newspaper or chatting with the girls she worked with all day. And maybe she always read like that--with an air of having surrendered totally to a spell.”

“It seemed to him that the little Manchu had never looked so radiant. She gave him a most charming smile, but her eyes were all for the boy.”

“Miss Brinklow, however, was not yet to be sidetracked. "What do the lamas do?" she continued."They devote themselves, madam, to contemplation and to the pursuit of wisdom.""But that isn't doing anything.""Then, madam, they do nothing.”

“She not black, she mulatto. Mulatto, mulatto, mulatto. Maybe she be family to both and to hurt white man just as bad as hurting black man…..Maybe if she start to think that she not black or white, then she won’t have to care about neither man’s affairs. Maybe if she don’t care what other people think she be and start think about what she think she be, maybe she can rise over backra and nigger business, since neither ever mean her any good. Since the blood that run through her both black and white, maybe she be her own thing. But what thing she be?”

“Imogen was a bright girl naturally, but she had read so many novels that her brain was completely turned.”

“No matter what a woman looks like, if she's confident, she's sexy”

“Maybe she should stop reading those damn romance novels. They were giving her crazy expectations.”