- Nurse: The operation was a success. You're out of danger.
- Rachel Cameron: How can I be out of danger if I'm not dead?
- [Last lines]
- Rachel Cameron: [Thinking] Where I'm going, anything may happen. Nothing may happen. Maybe I'll find a friend. Maybe I'll even marry a middle-aged widower and have children in my time. Most of the chances are against it, but not, I think, quite all. It may be that my children will always be temporary, never to be held. But so are everyone's. I will be afraid, always. I may be lonely, always. What will happen? What will happen?
- Rachel Cameron: Oh, guess who invited me for supper tonight, and I said "No". The groper.
- Calla Mackie: He probably serves rat. Come on up after, I bought you a... a nothing gift.
- Rachel Cameron: What?
- Calla Mackie: A companion that needs taking care of. But unlike your mother, it doesn't talk back.
- Rachel Cameron: [On the phone with her mother in the room] Hello?
- Nick Kazlik: [On the other line] Hello.
- Rachel Cameron: Oh. Oh, hello!
- Nick Kazlik: My folks are away for the weekend. So, I thought maybe you'd like to play house. We got, like, three bedrooms, so we can chase each other from room to room between - you know.
- Rachel Cameron: Yes! I'd - I'd love to read that book. That sounds very interesting. Can you get it from the public library?
- Nick Kazlik: Oh, you can't talk, right?
- Rachel Cameron: Right. At this moment, I'm Venus observed.
- Nick Kazlik: I'll pick you up in an hour. We can go to the store and stock up and you can cook us huge meals in between - raptures.
- Rachel Cameron: I'm exactly in the middle of my life. This is my last ascending summer. Everything else from now on is just rolling downhill into my grave.
- Leighton Siddley: You know, you ought to take a nerve relaxer. I do. Once the tension's gone, sleep can be a very - sensual experience.
- Rachel Cameron: Leighton, is there something special you have in mind?
- Rachel Cameron: You're out on the job early this morning.
- Hector Jonas: Yes. I had the damnedest nightmares all night long.
- Rachel Cameron: Guilty conscience?
- Hector Jonas: Don't I wish.
- Calla Mackie: We're off to the library to look at castles and keeps. What are you off to?
- Rachel Cameron: We're going to be fairies and butterflies.
- Calla Mackie: Ooh.
- Rachel Cameron: I'm gonna get a good suntan. No, I'm not. Every summer, I say that and I buy oodles of suntan lotion and at the end of the summer, I'm still just as pale as a mushroom.
- Calla Mackie: Every time we've ever gone for an ice cream cone, you've ordered vanilla. That's not the only kind, Rachel. There are 30 other flavors, plus a flavor of the month. And there are more people on this Earth than just you.
- Mrs. Cameron: I heard the most awful thing about the Stewart girl today. Cassie Stewart has, shall we say: been away.
- Rachel Cameron: Been away with quotation marks?
- Mrs. Cameron: Double quotation marks. Twins. And no prospect of a husband in sight.
- Mrs. Cameron: You're awfully late this evening, dear. I almost gave up.
- Rachel Cameron: I'm sorry.
- Mrs. Cameron: I don't enjoy sitting here entertaining the pots and pans.
- Mrs. Cameron: I wish somebody would explain to me why they keep putting those green ones in with the limey taste. I mean, if they're going to look like peppermints, they should taste like peppermints. Don't you agree?
- Rachel Cameron: I keep house for my mother. I have since my father died.
- Nick Kazlik: I didn't know he died.
- Rachel Cameron: There's no need for condolences. It was 14 years ago.
- Nick Kazlik: That's a lot of housekeeping.
- Rachel Cameron: [lying in bed, at night, talking to herself] Don't, Rachel. Don't. But it's just so I can sleep.
- [moves her hand down under the covers]
- Rachel Cameron: Don't.
- Preacher: Look at your neighbor. The human being in front or next to you that you don't know. Look in his eye. Now, who is he? He's you! And you're him and you're both suffering because you can't say what you want to each other. What do you want to say? What do you feel?
- Calla Mackie: Have you by any chance had yourself a little nipsy on the sly?
- Rachel Cameron: Sure. First, an encounter at Shabab's. And then home to the cooking sherry, that's me.
- Rachel Cameron: Nothing's real. Nothing is now. If somebody pinched me, I wouldn't even hurt. I don't know, I've only got one life. I say to myself, "Oh, maybe next time this or that comes around, I'll grab it. " But nothing ever comes around again, ever, does it?
- Preacher: Are you so frightened of a hand?
- Rachel Cameron: No.
- Preacher: It's only a hand. It won't harm you, don't you know that? Five - fingers to hold with, to hold on with. Would you hold onto me? I think you want to. Be willing. Please. Please allow what you're feeling. The door is open. Love. Say it with me. Love. It's just a word, don't be embarrassed. Say it. Love. Love.
- Rachel Cameron: [whispers] Love.
- Preacher: Again. Love.
- Rachel Cameron: Love.
- Preacher: Again. Love!
- Rachel Cameron: What happened?
- Calla Mackie: Nothing. Nothing bad.
- Rachel Cameron: I was on the floor.
- Calla Mackie: Nothing bad happened. Honestly, Rachel.
- Rachel Cameron: I - was I loud? Did it take long?
- Rachel Cameron: I made a fool of myself!
- Calla Mackie: Listen, we're all fools. You can't be part of the human race and not be a fool to somebody.
- Nick Kazlik: Don't worry, love. It's never much good the first time.
- Rachel Cameron: Is it so obvious, then?
- Nick Kazlik: Is what so obvious?
- Rachel Cameron: That it's the first time for me?
- Nick Kazlik: You don't have to play the virgin. I'm not gonna go around saying you're a whore.
- [kisses Rachel's nose, then her lips, lays her down on the blanket, sound of a dog barking and a train passing in the distance]
- Nick Kazlik: [outside, at night, Nick removes his clothes, sits down on a blanket with Rachel, still fully clothed] You have beautiful skin.
- [kisses Rachel's cheek]
- Rachel Cameron: Thank you.
- Nick Kazlik: Touch me.
- Rachel Cameron: [touches Nick, they kiss, Nick unzips the back of Rachel's dress, she holds it up so it doesn't expose her body] The moon's so bright, I can see the cemetery.
- Nick Kazlik: Well, that "grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace."
- Nick Kazlik: Cows. I don't like the way they parade around nude in mixed company. I think they should either wear brassieres, half-slips or go to jail.
- Nick Kazlik: Boy, when you look at a person, you really look.
- Rachel Cameron: Was I staring?
- Nick Kazlik: Oh, right across to the wrong side of the tracks.
- Nick Kazlik: What did you think of us? Us bohunk kids way back then?
- Rachel Cameron: I envied you.
- Nick Kazlik: Why? Did you think we spent all our time gettin' laid? And doing gay Slavic dances? Oh, I've embarrassed you again. Like when I said I was lookin' for a little action. I'm sorry.
- Nick Kazlik: That's a comfortable chuckle. Are you gonna keep it to yourself or let me in on it?
- Rachel Cameron: I was just remembering a poem that my father saved. He used to save funny things that people wanted to have put on their tombstone. And this one was: Your days away don't piddle, At every season strive, For once you're past the middle, You're more dead than alive. Isn't that awful? It's apropos of me.
- Rachel Cameron: [internal voice] Oh, Nick, I know I didn't do well. It couldn't have been very nice for you. God, please. Whoever you are, please let him see me again. So I can make it up to him. Just so I can cancel out the clumsiness.
- Rachel Cameron: When I like somebody I get scared. I sometimes I dream about them being already embalmed. If I hold onto you, nothing can happen.
- Hector Jonas: I have here two quarts of ripple fudge ice cream in this bag and I'd love to accommodate you girls before it melts.
- Rachel Cameron: Thank you, Hector, but I'm a vanilla girl. Or rather, I was.
- Mrs. Cameron: Cold rich things on a warm day only make you warmer, Hector.