- Billie Jean: Now, we'll take our clothes off and we'll feel more comfortable.
- Miss Dove: The pronoun "we" is misleading unless you propose to take off your clothes too.
- Billie Jean: You know Bill Holloway? Office Holloway I suppose I should refer to him.
- Miss Dove: William was one of my pupils.
- Billie Jean: Well I just thought you might like to know how he's got you up on a pedestal. He says that you're his ideal of "real genteel".
- Dr. Tommy Baker: Miss Dove, the terrible Miss Dove. Without her, there'd have been no Thomas Baker, no beautiful Mrs Baker, no little Whoozit Baker.
- Virginia Baker: What did she have to do with it?
- Dr. Tommy Baker: That time in the South Pacific, when my ship was bombed. Floating for days in that raft, no food, no water. She was right there with me all the time. Giving me the same fishy stare she used to give me back in the geography room when I needed a drink of water. So to make my supply hold out, I pretended I was back in old Cedar Grove. Even when the water was gone, I kept on pretending. I'd think, that bell will ring in a few minutes, you can last a little longer. Well, I lasted. They picked me up and gave me a medal. *She* rated that medal.
- Miss Dove: William Holloway started out with a gift rarer than mathematical genius or perfect pitch. A child in whom the ethical instinct was as innate as the function of breathing.
- Billie Jean: Oh brother! If anyone should ever tell him that, you could drive a truck right between his ears!
- Dr. Tommy Baker: Spine straight, Miss Dove; don't wobble about.
- Miss Dove: It is NOT my custom to wobble.
- Miss Dove: To study a people and their customs is valuable. But to know a people and their customs is a privilege seldom attained without the luxury of travel.