“I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.”

“When people talk about the good old days, I say to people, 'It's not the days that are old, it's you that's old.' I hate the good old days. What is important is that today is good.”

“But they wrote like little old men and little old ladies, all purseymouthed and ooo, don't slip on that icy patch, Mildred.”

“You'll say things all wrong but they'll at once become American ways of saying things. You won't know shit but it'll right away become an American type of ignorance. Not belonging, that's an old American tradition, see?, that's the American way.”

“Of course you keep telling yourself there's something to be learned from everything, and growing old shouldn't be that hard. That's the general drift.”

“Now that all the beauty of my old life is gone, I crave it like good. A beautiful thing like this rose: I almost want to eat it, to swallow it whole to replace the beauty I've lost.”