“Women's bodies are public domain, as evidenced clearly at the present time by the furor over abortion. Everyone has an opinion about what a woman should or should not do with her body. ”

“What unites the women who seek to reduce their weight is the fact that they look for an answer to life's problems in the control of their bodies and appetites. A woman who walks through the doors of a weight watching organization and enters the women's reduction movement has allowed her culture to persuade her that significant relief from personal and cultural dilemma is to be found in the reduction of her body, thus, her decision, although she may not be aware of it, enters the domain of the body politik and becomes symbolically a political act." p.101”

“There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women's bodies by men. The woman's body is the terrain on which patriarchy is erected.”

“It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”

“I think," Ella said, "that what a woman does or doesn't do should be up to the woman, and she should make up her own mind and not change it when the wind starts to blow. I think a woman should be who she is, not what others expect her to be. And if she wants to go to a dance looking for a man, she should go and not feel like she has to explain herself. And if she want to have her own farm, she should do that and not feel like she has to explain that, either. And…I think you should be quiet now.”

“We should bury the bodies,” Sam said. Gabriel shook her head. “We haven’t got time. There are two hundred and sixty seven bodies here. Do you know how long that would take?”