“Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?”

“Betsy did not answer. She was a talker, her family always said, but sometimes when she most wanted to talk she couldn't say a word.”

“Betsy liked to talk. Her father always said she got it from her mother, and her mother always said she got it from her father. But whomever she got it from she was certainly a talker.”

“Then he kissed her. Betsy didn't believe in letting boys kiss you. She thought it was silly to be letting first this boy and then that one kiss you, when it didn't mean a thing. But it was wonderful when Joe Willard kissed her. And it did mean a thing.”

“People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, 'I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live?”

“I'm finished with something, but I'm not beginning anything. That's wrong. When you finish something, you ought always to begin something new.”

“When there are boys you have to worry about how you look, and whether they like you, and why they like another girl better, and whether they're going to ask you to something or other. It's a strain.”