...[O]ne of the first things a Magnolia League debutante learns: Keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself.

[W]hat should I have done? Gather dirt in my purse?

...I've been told that this building is here waiting for me. It's been my Buckingham Palace, my White House, my Taj Mahal, so coming here today as a real member is - well, it's a big deal.

...while you've never heard of her, in my mind she's practically a celebrity.

I've always liked Anna, but according to my mother, her family is complete New Money, and my grandmother has pointed out on several occasions that they're not even really Southern.

There is life and there is death, but on the border, where one shades into the other, there is the In Between. "...[M]ost people go through life without even knowing that it's there.

I'm named after my great grand-mother...while you've never heard of her, in my mind she's practically a celebrity.

You won't be able to find it out for yourself in any library or archive, either, because my grandmother has carefully and systematically destroyed every shred of evidence.

If not for her truly sparkling personality, she would have been doomed.

[W]hat my grandmother and my mother and I all know is that our beauty is no miracle. It is bought and paid for.

[M]y grandmother...had always complained that our house didn't have a profile that was "significant enough.

Marriage is just a piece of paper if it's not a happy one.

What's a rainy daywithout some deliciouscoffee-flavoured loneliness?

The big turning point, really, was the Beatles' influence on American folk music, and then Roger took it to the next step, and then along came the Lovin' Spoonful and everybody else.

We have chemical weapons in America too, they're called meth and cocaine.

Love beyond the damage.

Decorating has always been my hobby.

I don't know what she is now. A stranger, mostly. It's as if she has become a part of a different world, one that doesn't include me anymore.

Marquise de Merteuil: I've distilled every thing to one single principle: win or die.

When you're a kid, you don't want to be teased.

I was brought up with the 3 Ds: Determination, Discipline and Da Lord.