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“And since she wanted to be good, she's always been careful not to care too much about money. Now she wondered if all those Disney movies were merely propaganda to keep poor people content with their lot. 'We may be poor, but we're the salt of the earth, we know what really matters. The rich are perverted by their hideous wealth - why, look at that Cruella de Vil!' But good or evil, even single dollar was power. Power to hire a lawyer, power to control how she spent her time, power to change her appearance, power to command respect. Power to be who she wanted to be.”

“Margo knew her mother was trying to pass down wisdom and skill, the dark of art of turning an ordinary person into a minor goddess by means of paint and fabric, but what she also heard was: Your face needs to be covered. To be loved, you should put this face over your face. It was even okay if it hurt, if it burned, if it accidentally tore out your eyelashes. 'Beauty is like free money,' Shyanne used to say as she did Margo's face.”

“I'd never said no to him, not once. We went where he wanted when he wanted, ate what he wanted, touched or didn't touch as much as he wanted. And honestly, I think I said it just to fuck with him: "Oh, I'm not having an abortion." He turned green almost instantaneously; it was extremely gratifying. "What are you, Catholic?" he asked in a much nastier voice than he usually spoke to me in. "No, but it's my choice," I said.”

“I visualized these dishes, imagined their flavors, and then taught myself how to make an "airline" cut, using my boning knife to bone out the breasts but keep a drumette attached. I brined the pieces overnight in a water bath of sugar, salt, and bay leaf before roasting them off in the oven lathered with butter and surrounded by clusters of sweet grapes. I taught myself to shuck oysters, and broke into dozens of them each week to get good practice before plating them on a bed of cold seaweed and beach rocks that I harvested from the bay. I dressed them with a tiny spoonful of finely diced shallots with vinegar and black pepper, and some chopped cucumber and fresh dill.”

“I don't know what a historian would say, but I would say Jesus: love thy neighbor, and it's easier for a camel to fit through a needle's eye than a rich man to get into heaven. In a place like Rome, insisting everyone had intrinsic value -- it rattled them. I mean, they killed him for it. I was not expecting an answer like that from my dad, who was, as far as I knew, violently atheist.”