“It's in my genes. My mother was an opera singer. I'm clearly dramatic.”

“I leaned across the table towards the crumb-thrower. "Do that again," I said, loud enough to be heard over the opera singer, Dolly, my mother, and the smell of the breadsticks, "and I will sell your firstborn child to the devil.”

“If I were an opera singer, I"d have sung you an aria. If I were an artist, I would have painted your portrait. But cooking is what I'm best at.”

“I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.”

“...who is the hunchback in my comic opera, but me? I'm crippled on the inside and unable to make the gestures of love...”

“Saige, Mother is . . .” I briefly close my eyes and swallow, clearing my mouth from saliva. “Mother is dead.”