and she had succeeded, on the second try, in hurling herself out of the world

The Pulitzer Prize is an idea; it's a vote of confidence. Like literature, it exists purely in the mind.

She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

Her eyes watered and she was a foot taller than any of her sisters, mostly because of the length of her neck which would one day hang from the end of a rope

In Madeleine's face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.

College wasn't like the real world. In the real world people dropped names based on their renown. In college, people dropped names based on their obscurity.

Though at this moment she felt abused, abandoned, and ashamed of herself, Madeleine knew that she was still young, that she had her whole life ahead of her--a life in which, if she persevered, she might do something special--and that part of persevering meant getting past moments just like this one, when people made you feel small, unlovable, and took away your confidence.