“It was true. Men could be with whomever they pleased. But women had to date better, kinder, richer, and bright, bright, bright, or else people got embarrassed.”

“She had worn a sequined, strapless wedding gown, and left her bridesmaid to wear brightly flowered dresses to fit for a kind of pornographic milkmaid: low-cut and laced up the midriff with a sort of shoelace. "What Scarlet O'Hara might have done with a shower curtain, if she were trying to snag a plumber.”

“I always do the wrong. I do the wrong thing so much that the times I actually do the right thing stand out so brightly in my memory that I forget I always do the wrong thing.”

“In so many things I loved I was sadly insufficiently gifted and driven. But writing I could plod along with -- and no one discouraged me. People were much kinder. I headed toward the kindness.”

“Sometimes it seemed that she and rudy were two people attempting to tango, sweating and trying, long after the orchestra had grown tired, long after everyone else had gone home.”

“This was my modest dream come true: unambitious flight. The kind that never even got high enough for a view.”

“Women now were told not to settle for second best, told that they deserved better, but at a time, it seemed, when there was so much less to go around.”