“Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness.”

“Krasivaya. It means beautiful, but with strength. Unique.”

“Sometimes kindness can be delivered in a clumsy way.”

“Sometimes we set off down a road thinkin' we're goin' one place and we end up another. But that's okay. The important thing is to start.”

“It amazed me how some people could touch an instrument and create something so beautiful, and when others tried, like me, it just sounded like mangled noise.”

“The words tasted sour. I agreed with Patrick. In New Orleans, sometimes death did feel more like socializing. And he knew better than anyone else. He frequented postmortem parties daily, trolling for books.”

“Hello, Josie,” they’d say with a half smile, followed by a sigh and sometimes a shake of the head. They acted like they felt sorry for me, but as soon as they were ten steps away, I’d hear one of the words, along with my mother’s name. The wealthy women pretended it singed their tongue to say whore. They’d whisper it and raise their eyebrows. Then they’d fake an expression of shock, like the word itself had crawled into their pants with a case of the clap. They didn’t need to feel sorry for me. I was nothing like Mother.”