“Oh, Zoeybird, did I call your mother's husband a damn turd monkey outloud?'
'Yes, Grandma, you did.'
She looked at me, her dark eyes sparkling. 'Good.”

“That man is such a damn turd monkey."
"Grandma!" I said.
"Oh, Zoeybird, did I just call your mother's husband a damn turd monkey out loud?"
"Yes, Grandma, you did."
She looked at me, her dark eyes sparkling. "Good.”

“[From Minna after stabbing Pauline von Lindorf to death]: Yes, I have killed her at last. They thought I did not know her, but I did. She took away my father's heart from me, and would have taken away my husband’s; but I have killed her at last.”

“Hello," Magnus said to the monkey. The monkey did not reply. "I shall call you Ragnor.”

“Jenny, if you're so con­vinced I'm a loser, why did you bull­doze me into buy­ing you cof­fee?'

She looked me straight in the eye and smiled.

'I like your body,' she said.”

“My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. “Izzy,” she would say, “did you ask a good question today?” That difference — asking good questions — made me become a scientist.”

“Where were you, he asked her, when I needed you the most? Did you ever hold me in your arms? Did you feed me? Did you ever look for me? Did you wonder where I might be?”

“Whoa!" she says as I plow into her. " What are you DOING? Get off me!" I hang on tight. "Can't a girl just hug her big sister?" She stops fighting me. "Are you dying? Am I dying? Did Grandma die? I laugh. "No one died." "Then get off!”

“Mom?" Mother turned to Grandmother.
"What?"
"She's going to lunch with her kidnapper!"
"Take a picture for me," Grandma said.”

“She called me a rat.’ ‘Oh yes, I gathered you two were very close!”