“How're your children, Mrs. Phelps?' he asked.'You know I haven't any! No one in his right mind, the good Lord knows, would have children!' said Mrs. Phelps, not quite sure why she was angry with this man.'I wouldn't say that,' said Mrs. Bowles. 'I've had TWO children by Caesarian section. No use going through all that agony for a baby. The world must reproduce, you know, the race must go on. Besides, they sometimes look just like you, and that's nice. Two Caesarians turned the trick, yes, sir. Oh, my doctor said, Caesarians aren't necessary; you've got the hips for it, everything's normal, but I INSISTED.''Caesarians or not, children are ruinous; you're out of your mind,' said Mrs. Phelps.'I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlor' and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid.' Mrs. Bowles tittered. 'They'd just as soon kick as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back!”

“Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. "Looks like you're going to work," she said, leaning heavily on her cane. "What are you packin'?" "A thirty-eight.""I like a nine-millimeter myself." "A nine's good." "Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane," she said. One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.”

“All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”

“Guariglia went to his children, who were playing by the brazier. "Look at them," he said. "I know they may not be as beautiful to you as they are to me...""They are," Alessandro interrupted. "No," Guariglia insisted, "they're not beautiful in that way, but to me, Alessandro, they are all that is good and holy. I didn't know God until I saw them. It's funny, as soon as you lose faith, you have children, and life reawakens.”

“I am illegitimate," she said distinctly, as if he were a foreigner trying to learn English. "You are a viscount. You can't marry a bastard.""What about the Duke of Clarence? He had ten bastard children by that actress...what was her name...""Mrs. Jordan.""Yes, that one, Their children were all illegitimate, but some of them married peers.""You're not the Duke of Clarence.""That's right. I'm not a blueblood any more than you are. I inherited the title purely by happenstance""That doesn't matter. If your married me, it would be scandalous and inappropriate, and doors would be closed to you.""Good God, woman, I let two of my sisters marry Gypsies. Those doors have already been closed, bolted, and nailed shut.”

“There's something I want you to know,' said Cherryl, her voice taut and harsh, 'so that there won't be any pretending about it. I'm not going to put on the sweet relative act. I know what you've done to Jim and how you've made him miserable all his life. I'm going to protect him against you. I'll put you in your place. I'm Mrs. Taggart. I'm the woman in this family now.''That's quite all right,' said Dagny. 'I'm the man.”