“She put up her posters, which mainly consisted of one five-foot-wide panorama of Diego Luna doing a split on the set of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights-which Penelope had decided would be an excellent conversation topic, because that is a movie everyone likes.”

“I was thinking about watching a movie or something," said Catherine. "That sounds great," said Ted. "Penelope, do you still have that TV?""Yes," said Penelope. Was he inviting her? She would make it clear that she was not attending. "You can use it. I think there is a parade in Boston that I wanted to go to."Ted started laughing."Penelope, don't be ridiculous. If we are watching TV in your room, then you have to come! I don't think there is a parade happening anywhere.”

“Penelope did not understand how this [study] group was ever formed. It consisted only of her mortal enemies. However, these were things you seemed to put aside during exam period.”

“Springtime in Massachusetts is depressing for those who embrace a progressive view of history and experience. It does not gradually develop as spring is supposed to. Instead, the crocuses bloom and the grass grows, but the foliage is independent from the weather, which gets colder and colder and sadder and sadder until June when one day it becomes brutishly hot without warning...It was fitting, then, that the first people who chose to settle there were mentally suspect.”

“Welcome to Lorelei's." A saleslady glided up to us. She had white foundation pancaked skin, and went heavy on the eyeliner and red lipstick. She wore a corset that barely contained...I'm gonna say it...her swelling bosom. If she had to sneeze, I was covering my eyes because even a slight cough could pop one of those suckers free.”

“I think one of the primary goals of a feminist landscape architecture would be to work toward a public landscape in which we can roam the streets at midnight, in which every square is available for Virginia Woolf to make up her novels ”

“Bett didn't have any siblings because she said her father had preserved what was dead for too long to be able to create life. When Bet was younger and had begged for one, her father gave her a marmot he' stuffed for a man from Wyoming."This is your brother Christopher," he'd said, placing the marmot on Bett's pillow one night. "He doesn't talk much, so you'll have to pick up the slack there.”