“Hack, hack, hack. I wouldn't pay twenty-five cents to spit on a Georgia O'Keeffe painting. And I think she's a horrible person, too. I know her...So arrogant, so sure of herself. I'm sure she's carrying a dildo in her purse.”

“With an exceedingly contemptuous expression, Idabel drew up to her full height. "Son," she said, and spit between her fingers, "what you've got in your britches is no news to me, and no concern of mine: hell, I've fooled around with nobody but boys since first grade. I never think like I'm a girl; you've got to remember that, or we can't never be friends." For all its bravado, she made this declaration with a special and compelling innocence; and when she knocked one fist against the other, as, frowning, she did now, and said: "I want so much to be a boy: I would be a sailor, I would..." the quality of her futility was touching.”

“The instant she saw the letter she squinted her eyes and bent her lips in a tough tiny smile that advanced her age immeasurably. "Darling," she instructed me, "would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.”

“What do you think? This ought to be the right kind of place for tough guy like you. Garbage cans. Rats galore. Plenty of cat-bums to gang around with. So scram,’ she said, dropping him… '...I told you. We just met by the river one day: that’s all. Independents, both of us. We never made each other any promises. We never -’ she said, and her voice collapsed, a tic, an invalid whiteness seized her face. The car had paused for a traffic light. Then she had the door open, she was running down the street; and I ran after her. ...she shuddered, she had to grip my arm to stand up: ‘Oh, Jesus God. We did belong to each other. He was mine.’ Then I made her a promise, I said I’d come back and find her cat. ‘I’ll take care of him, too. I promise.’ She smiled: that cheerless new pinch of a smile. ‘But what about me?’ she said, whispered, and shivered again. ‘I’m very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what’s yours until you’re thrown it away. The mean reds, they’re nothing...”

“She would not admit she was making a mess. Unfazed by bacon already shriveled and coffee stone-cold, she poured her mixings onto a grill she'd forgotten to grease, and said, "Oh I adore to cook: it makes me feel so mindless in a worthwhile way.”

“She's such a goddamn liar maybe she don't know herself anymore.”

“She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said.[...]It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”