“Growing up, I have discovered over time, is rather like housework: never finished.”

“All the worry people expend over not existing after they die, yet nary a one ever seems to spare a moment to worry about not having existed before they were conceived. Or at all. After all, one sperm over and we would have been our sisters, and we'd never have been missed.”

“For Berry, you just be there, Whit. Be the one person in the wide green world she doesn't have to explain it to, because you were there and saw it all for yourself. Hand her a clean cloth if she cries or bleeds, and some warm thing for the pain that doubles her over. The time to hold her will come. This day isn't over yet.”

“It must be quite a shock to suddenly find out you're pregnant, seventeen times over—at your age, too.”

“Damn it," he mumbled apologetically, "things like this never happened to Vorthalia the Bold."She raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "How do you know? The histories of those times were all written by minstrels and poets. You try and think of a word that rhymes with 'bleeding ulcer”

“But have you ever overheard two women discussing men? Men are crude liars, comparing their drabs, but women - I'd rather have [an] anatomist dissect me alive than to listen to the things the ladies say about us when they think they are alone.”

“Sorry, Bill. I just have this awful vision of being p-peeled like an onion, looking for the seeds."He grinned. "Onions don't have seeds, Cordelia.""I stand corrected," she said dryly.”