“How she longed for the uninhibitedness of kids her age, their vacuous sense of immortality.”

“Lollipop had been her nickname for me as long as I could remember. I asked her how she came up with the name, and she told me sometimes kids are sweet, and sometimes they just need a good lickin'.”

“No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”

“After a while the middle-aged person who lives in her head begins to talk to her soul, the kid.”

“But even a nice mom and dad like this can't really sense how their child's been assaulted by commercialism ever since she was little, how she's lived in fear of being eaten alive by the morons around her. They just don't get it.Mom always lectures me about not being afraid of getting hurt, but all she can imagine is the kind of hurt she's experienced herself. She has no idea of the threats that surround kids these days, how much we're bullied, how much hurt this causes.”

“She had long since lost the sense of her dresses and skirts and blouses; they were rote phrases of rayon and cotton that she daily intoned.”