“... that most natural human appetite, the hunger for somewhere else.”

“The person you are (in total, at that moment in time) is what creates the story you're writing. It's infused in every piece of punctuation, in the plot, in the most minor character who crosses the page. It's all your voice.”

“Queens, New York. The most ethnically diverse region not just in the United States, but on the entire planet... In Queens, you will find Korean kids who sound like black kids. Italians who sound like Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans who sound like Italians. Third-generation Irish who sound like old Jews. That's Queens. Not a melting pot, not even a tossed salad, but an all-you-can-eat, mix-and-match buffet.”

“Her professionalism aside, Nabisase's victory was rigged by an endomorph and a goblin standing in crabgrass, and she would never know it. There are so many lives decided this way.”

“No matter where you go, poor people have the capacity to endure. Some people even compliment us on it, as if endurance is all we can achieve.”

“The poor aren't defeated. We're domesticated.”

“Nearly everyone could be undone by an old woman's displeasure.”