"I've learned I can trust that humans in general will strive to make things better for themselves and their communitie…"

"“Mami,” Ti-Jeanne said, “I should go and get Baby. He ain’t take to Tony.” “Hmph. Child got some sense, then. More th…"

"“I can’t keep giving my will into other people hands no more, ain’t? I have to decide what I want to do for myself.” …"

"She had a yearning to lose herself in this noisy throng of people going about the business of staying alive."

"Since Baby’s birth, she had learned that the first few months of motherhood were about fatigue and leakiness."

"This was a thing she’d not seen before, how the meat that fed her was a living being one minute and then violently de…"

"Come in peace to my home, Tan-Tan. And when you go, go in friendship."

"She just wanted to be somewhere safe, somewhere familiar, where people looked and spoke like her and she could stand …"

"She curled up on the pallet and stared into the dark, praying for a peaceful sleep. Prayers didn’t do no good, oui. A…"

"I was nodding off on the streetcar home from work when I saw the woman getting on. She was wearing the body I used to…"