“Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.”

“You West Virginia girls are one tough breed," he said.You got that right," I told him.”

“God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.”

“Sometimes it didn't matter how much gumption you had. What mattered were the cards you'd been dealt.”

“The place where you live - your home - is one of the most important things in a body's life.”

“I became known as Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County, and it wasn't half bad to be in place where no one had a problem with a woman having a moniker like that.”

“Helen and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there looking at them. The way I saw it, I was the one who'd saved us all, not Mom and not some guardian angel.”