“--the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man...”

“Depending on your point of view, Ashley (or Leslie Howard) was sensitive, poetic, and enigmatic-- or wan and a wimp. Rhett/Clark Gable was sexy, virile, and funny or just crude and unmannerly. The outcome was a crucial barometer of taste that would reveal a great deal, possibly too much, about a girl's temperament and predilections.”

“As a man without forethought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so forethought without reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a beast. - (1772-1834)”

“How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.”

“A man doesn't want to be rejected. We're really quite sensitive.'Sensitive?' She laughed, her head on one side. 'Sensitive egos you mean. Never met a man who didn't have one of those.”

“...the social mould civilization fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapes than the conventional shapes of the constellations have to the real star-patterns. I am called Mrs. Richard Phillotson, living a calm wedded life with my counterpart of that name. But I am not really Mrs. Richard Phillotson, but a woman tossed about, all alone, with aberrant passions, and unaccountable antipathies...”