“[From Old Mortality]...religion put claws on Aunt Sally and gave her a post to whet them on.”

“[From Old Mortality]The woman in the picture. . . was only a ghost in a frame, and a sad, pretty story from old times.”

“[From The Old Order]The Grandmother always treated her animal friends as if they were human beings temporarily metamorphosed . . .”

“[From Flowering Judas]She is, her comrades tell her, full of romantic error, for what she defines as cynicism in them is merely 'a developed sense of reality'.”

“The thought of him was a smoky cloud from hell that moved and crept in her head.”

“Strolling, keeping step, his stout polished well-made boots setting themselves down firmly beside her thin-soled black suede, they put off as long as they could the end of their moment together, and kept up as well as they could their small talk that flew back and forth over little grooves worn in the thin upper suface of the brain, things you could say and hear clink reassuringly at once without disturbing the radiance which played and darted about the simple and lovely miracle of being two persons named Adam and Miranda, twenty-four years old each, alive and on earth at the same moment: 'Are you in the mood for dancing, Miranda?' and 'I'm always in the mood for dancing, Adam!' but there were things in the way, the day that ended with dancing was a long way to go.”

“...with the most infinite tenderness I have ever known in my life, he put his arms around me, gently, gently, and I embraced him around the neck, and we touched...”