“I don't kill flies but I like to mess with their minds. I hold them above globes. They freak out and yell, 'Whoa, I'm way too high!”

“Anybody could rise above anything in America. ...No, they can't, Marie said, from the backseat. How was I supposed to break out of there? What were my people going to say? Uppity. That's what. 'Cause if I can, why can't they? But I tell you what, I don't even know how it's done. I never seen nobody do it.”

“Other people's children went off to college, which for years Ronald had interpreted as a positive thing. Lately, though, he wasn't so sure. The children who went off to college hardly ever came back. It was as though the hard work of getting that college degree bent them out of shape, focused them too much on their own personal achievement. Once you got that degree, it was all about getting ahead in that monetized struggle, and they forgot the community that raised them. Ooh, live in the Lower Nine; not me. Ooh, do a day's work with your hands; I won't touch that. The neighborhood gained something when one of its children went off to become a doctor or an engineer, but it lost something, too.”

“I'm Level Eighty on Warcraft."The clerk was stunned. "You're Level Eighty?! Are you Horde, or Alliance?""What, are you kidding me? I'm Horde, of course! I'm a Level Eighty Undead Priestess. What Guild are you in?""I'm a Horde Blood Elf Paladin. Level 30. I'm in the Blood Roses Guild.""Have you ever seen a 'Spectral Tiger' loot card? I bet you never have."The museum clerk thought about her situation. The psychic pressure was mounting on her. She was in a state of moral anguish. "Look, Signora, I'd love to help your American clients there... But if my director knew I was Warcrafting here at work, she'd kill me! Besides, you don't have any 'Spectral Tiger' in your purse, I bet.”

“If I were you,And you were I,I would kill myself, But you would die!”

“Will you walk with me out on the wire, cuz baby, I'm just a scared and lonely rider, but I gotta know how it feels... I want to know love is wild, babe, I want to know love is real.”

“If I tell you I'm good, probably you will say I'm boasting. But if I tell you I'm not good, you'll know I'm lying.”