“It seems to be the fashion nowadays for a girl to behave as much like a man as possible. Well, I won't! I'll make the best of being a girl and be as nice a specimen as I can: sweet and modest, a dear, dainty thing with clothes smelling all sweet and violety, a soft voice, and pretty, womanly ways. Since I'm a girl, I prefer to be a real one!”

“My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!”

“...Love, my lads! And above all, love pretty, charming girls; they are the remedy for evil, they give a sweet smell to rottenness, they exchange life for death...Love, my lads!”

“The examples seemed to fall into two categories: girls who used sweetness and girls who used pluck.”

“She was a sweet girl but not really pretty, a rough sketch of a woman with a little of everything in her, one of those silhouettes which artists draw in three strokes on the tablecloth in a café after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette. Nature sometimes turns out creatures like that.”

“Here's the thing: I am not beautiful. I'm pretty. I'll allow that much. Pretty. But I'm not the girl boys long for.”

“I disconnected myself to shield myself from people who would sway to my songs in the club and call me 'nigger' in the street. They were too busy seeing their own preconceived image of a Negro woman. the image that I chose to give them was of a woman who they could not reach and therefore can't hurt.”