The Government justifies keeping everyone else in poverty because people seem to work the hardest when they're right on the edge of survival.

...even the most independent people sometimes needed help. And if I'd learned nothing else from my life thus far, it was that you don't always end up where you think you're going.

Maybe everyone is just waiting for someone else to save them.

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

I like playing around with the words; I love it when I feel like I've picked the exact right word to describe whatever it is I'm trying to describe

I snorted "oh, beauty. What's that good for?" Mary stared, her eyes round. "It won you the prince, did it not?" I snorted again, I prefer to think that he was captivated by my charming personality." I giggled to let Mary know I was trying to make fun of myself.

Amazing, Yetta thought. Back home I couldn't have chosen my own husband. And here I'm thinking about choosing presidents, governors, mayors, laws.