“She smiled at him, with longing. 'Where do you live,' she asked, 'and how do I get there?”

“He was thinking, but she could tell he wasn't good at it....'Where do you live,' she asked, 'and how do I get there?”

“The situation was not easy for her, they knew. Once, at the start of last semester, she had skipped into her lecture hall singing "Getting to Know You" - both verses. At the request of the dean the chairman had called her into his office, but did not ask her for an explanation, not really. He asked her how she was and then smiled in an avuncular way. She said, "Fine," and he studied the way she said it, her front teeth catching on the inside of her lower lip. She was almost pretty, but her face showed the strain and ambition of always having been close but not quite.”

“A match made in heaven - where do you get those? That's what I want to know!”

“I don't have a love life. I have a like life.'Mamie smiled. She thought how nice that might be, to be peacefully free from love...”

“On-yez, where are you from, dear?' asked a black-slacked, frosted-haired woman whose skin was papery and melanomic with suntan. 'Originally.' She eyed Agnes's outfit as if it might be what in fact it was: a couple of blue things purchased in a department store in Cedar Rapids. Where am I from?' Agnes said it softly. 'Iowa.' She had a tendency not to speak up. Where?' the woman scowled, bewildered. Iowa,' Agnes repeated loudly. The woman in black touched Agnes's wrist and leaned in confidentially. She moved her mouth in a concerned and exaggerated way, like an exercise. 'No, dear,' she said. 'Here we say O-hi-o.”

“Which is it," she asked. "Is it CLIToris or clotORis?" I didn't know. Why didn't I know? "It may depend on which you have," I said.”