“I'm not some naïve, virginal little nothing who doesn't know which end is up.”

There is growth only in plants; but there is irritability, or, a better word, instinctivity, in insects.

Elmer Blaney Harris eloquently captures the feel of the Bowery in 1906: Bands, orchestras, pianos, at war with gramophones, hand-organs, calliopes; overhead, a roar of wheels in a deathlock with shrieks and screams; whistles, gongs, rifles all busy, the smell of candy, popcorn, meats, beer, tobacco, blended with the odor of the crowd redolent now and ten of patchouli; a streaming river of people arched over by electric signs -- this is the Bowery at Coney Island.

As in a stupor, forging headlong forward she was overtaken in the vicinity of Valopolis by the evening voiture of Madame Mimosa, the lady's monogram, Kiki, wreathed in true-love-knots, emblazoning triply the doors and rear.