“I would not send a poor girl into the world, ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself.”

“She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.”

“All at once I loathed her, because she had hurt me. This girl! She had torn up my sonnet by Dowson, she had shown my telegram to everybody in the Columbia Buffet. She had made a fool of me at the beach. She suspected my virility, and her suspicion was the same as the scorn in her eyes. I watched her face and lips and thought how it would be a pleasure to strike her, send my fist with all force against her nose and lips.”

“If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.”

“Always respect Mother Nature. Especially when she weighs 400 pounds and is guarding her baby.”

“Who will guard the guards? If we're the guards of society, then who will watch us and make sure that we're not dangerous?”

“Poor Jenny, bright as a penny!
Her equal would be hard to find.
She lost one dad and mother,
A sister and a brother--
But she would make up her mind.”

“She could only realize that she herself — her present self — was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes.”

“she was glad she had been scarred. She said that whoever loved her now would love her true self, and not her pretty face.”

“It would not be practical for her to hate herself. Luckily, God sends a substitute, a husband.”