“In New York, boy, money really talks - I’m not kidding.”

“Well. He's a very sensitive boy. He's really never been a terribly good mixer with other boys...'Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddamn toilet seat.”

“I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness.”

“The one that sang, old Janine, was always whispering into the g***** microphone before she sang. She'd say, 'And now we like to geeve you our impression of Vooly Voo Fransay. Eet ees the story of leetle Fransh girl who comes to a beeg ceety, just like New York, and falls een love wees a leetle boy from Brookleen. We hope you like eet.' Then, when she was all done whispering and being cute as hell, she'd sing some dopey song, half in English and half in French, and drive all the phonies in the place mad with joy.”

“You don't know how to talk to people you don't like. Don't love, really. You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.”

“Mary Jane. Listen. Please," Eloise said, sobbing. "You remember our freshman year, and I had that brown-and-yellow dress I bought in Boise, and Miriam Ball told me nobody wore those kind of dresses in New York, and I cried all night?" Eloise shook Mary Jane's arm. "I was a nice girl," she pleaded, "wasn't I?”

“I said I thought she had a very fine voice.She nodded. 'I know. I'm going to be a professional singer.''Really? Opera?''Heavens, no. I'm going to sing jazz on the radio and make heaps of money. Then, when I'm thirty, I shall retire and live on a ranch in Ohio.”