"'Don't stare, Iris. Haven't I told you that's rude?' She wonders if their blood too, like their skin, is darker than the blood of Caucasians. Of 'whites.' She has heard the mysterious words 'black blood,' 'Negro blood.' Aunt Madelyn murmuring with a fierce shake of her head, 'That's black blood for you!'" Part 1, Chapter 3, p. 21

"'Colored' is acceptable too, sometimes; it's the word Aunt Madelyn prefers. (Madelyn Daiches, whom Iris loves, isn't Iris's aunt, really, but a cousin-twice-removed of Persia's.) Aunt Madelyn has many 'colored' friends, she says, women friends, and fine people they are too, but the race as a whole... 'the-race-as-a-whole'... can't be trusted." Part 1, Chapter 3, p. 23

"For as long as Iris can remember her parents have joked and complained and worried aloud about her uncle Leslie: his lack of 'normal' ambition... the 'squalor' of his little shop... the mystery of...