Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?

Then he kissed her. Betsy didn't believe in letting boys kiss you. She thought it was silly to be letting first this boy and then that one kiss you, when it didn't mean a thing. But it was wonderful when Joe Willard kissed her. And it did mean a thing.

We'll just have to find more flowers in the spring. That's when they bloom, tra la.

Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.

You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It's the beginning of growing up.

When there are boys you have to worry about how you look, and whether they like you, and why they like another girl better, and whether they're going to ask you to something or other. It's a strain.

You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.