Quote 1
"She's Grandma's worst enemy. She says Mrs. Wilcox's tongue is attached in the middle and flaps at both ends. The town'll be quieter without her, and Grandma will like that."
"You don't know anything," Mary Alice said. "Men don't have any idea about women." (6.11-12)
Joey has assumed that Grandma Dowdel hates Mrs. Wilcox, but Mary Alice sets him straight. He just doesn't get how female friendships work, and especially has no clue about the relationship between Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox.
Quote 2
"And I thought you'd switched the card on Mr. Pennypacker's pie with yours so you could win with his pie."
She shot me her sternest look. But then easing back in the platform rocker, she said, "I did." (4.129-130)
At the end of the day, Joey confronts Grandma about having switched the two pies before the competition. She admits that she did do that…and thus reveals that if she had just stuck with her own pie, she would have won first prize.
Quote 3
"Grandma," I said, "is trapping fish legal in this state?"
"If it was," she said, "we wouldn't have to be so quiet."
"What's the fine?"
"Nothin' if you don't get caught," she said. "Anyhow, it's not my boat." Which was an example of the way Grandma reasoned. (3.52-55)
Grandma Dowdel has an interesting concept of morality and ethics, which is something that she passes on to Joey and Mary Alice. She knows that trapping fish is illegal, but it's technically fine as long as you don't get caught, right? The same goes for stolen boats.
Quote 4
I stared. We'd covered the Mexican War in school that year. "Grandma, the Mexican War started almost ninety years ago. Even if Uncle Grady is a hundred and three, he'd only have been about my age during that war." (7.133)
Joey suspects that Uncle Grady isn't actually as old as Grandma claims he is, but by now, he knows better than to try and talk her out of her schemes. They're going to claim that Uncle Grady is the oldest settler, and that's that.
Quote 5
"Got a new pet?" I inquired.
"Chicago people have pets," she said. "But there's a new litter living down in the cobhouse now, and I let 'em. They keep down the vermin. Don't need all of them though." (7.94)
Grandma Dowdel doesn't live by the kids' city ways; she doesn't keep pets in the same way that they do. Instead, she just lets a bunch of cats (and kittens) live in the cobhouse, but she's not attached to them or anything.