“Mary? She's mine.Yeah, but we had that thing...SHE'S MINE!”

“She [the Virgin Mary] was normal. She had already had other children. The Bible tells us that Jesus had two brothers. Virginity, as it relates to Jesus, is based on a different thing: Mary initiated a new generation of grace. A new era began. She is the cosmic bride, Earth, which opens to the heavens and allows itself to be fertilized.”

“She nodded, wondering why couldn't she have been named Mary. Or Sue.But no, she had to be nine-letter Elizabeth.”

“Rilla was not fond of Mary Vance. She had never forgotten the humiliating day when Mary had chased her through the village with a dried codfish.”

“At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.”

“Mary is roused to great anxiety by these rumors (but then, she is roused to great anxiety by a great many things).”