“I never wear flats. My shoes are so high that sometimes when I step out of them, people look around in confusion and ask, "Where'd she go?" and I have to say, "I'm down here.”

“But he is an Italian," was Umberto's sensible reply. "He doesn't care if you break some law a little bit, as long as you wear beautiful shoes. Are you wearing beautiful shoes? Are you wearing the shoes I gave you?...principessa?"I looked down at my flip-flops. "I guess I'm toast.”

“Here's an example of how it wastes some time. To be judged on or to be talked about on appearance—say chest size—it makes me wear layers, it makes me have to waste time figuring out what am I going to wear so that nobody will look in an area that I don't need them to look at.”

“Are you too destitute to buy shoes Miss Winters?""What makes you ask?""I know the Indians are accustomed to wearing such footgear, but I've never seen respectable white women do so. They prefer shoes. From the rear I might have taken you for a squaw.""Nobody asked you to look at my rear.”

“If I did not wear torn pants, orthopedic shoes, frantic disheveled hair, that is to say, if I did not tone down my beauty, people would go mad. Married men would run amuck.”

“You think you're the foreigner here, and I'm the American, and I just look the other way while the President or somebody sends down this and that . . . to torture people with. But nobody asked my permission, okay? Sometimes I feel like I'm a foreigner, too.”