"This is the story of an electrically alive young woman on the brink of her adult life. An artist equally attuned to the light as the shadows, with a limitless hunger for experience and knowledge, comp..."
- Elizabeth Winder
"Her attachment to language was earthy, physical, and immediate. Pretty words you could eat."
"We knew she [Sylvia] was unusual, because of the seriousness with which she was treated, the lofty importance of her job as guest managing editor, and because she was kept fast at her desk when the re..."
"Before New York, the cracks were already there, but now they began to split open and gape, and the difference between how a thing or a place or a person appears and the reality becomes alarmingly visi..."
"It is perhaps fortunate that Sylvia was oblivious to the commotion behind the scenes. Apparently, Henry O. Teltscher had written a letter to Betsy Talbot Blackwell, warning her that one of her guest e..."
"New clothes left Sylvia reeling with happiness. For Sylvia, a shopping list was a poem. She always shopped alone - it suited her deliberate nature and the artistic joy with which she approached all th..."
"These were the new girls of New York- complete with rapid heartbeats from too much nicotine and coffee. They were nervous and fluttery but completely alluring- the new face of urban femininity."
"Cyrilly expected Sylvia – as an intelligent and ambitious young woman – to walk around pale-mouthed and flat-shoed. She saw intellectual inclinations and a taste for fashion as mutually exclusive and ..."
"And is not all of life material- based on the material- permeated by the material? Should not one learn, gladly, to utilize the beauty of the fine material? I do not speak of the gross crudities of so..."
"All year long Sylvia had been trying to overthrow her guileless, college girl image. She knew "cottons with big full skirts and university personalities" would have looked hopelessly naive in New York..."