Privacy is a luxury.
-- Andrea Elliott (chapter 2)

Importance: When Elliott finally gains access to Auburn, the homeless shelter where Dasani lives with her family of ten in one room, one of her first observations is about how little privacy the entire family has. She notes how Dasani will sometimes read or just close her eyes in a bathroom stall--all so that she can have some space.

White people divide into two categories: those who are paid to monitor Dasani's family and those who are called to help.
-- Andrea Elliott (chapter 2)

Importance: Elliott reports that Dasani comes into contact with very few white people. When she and her family do come in contact with them, they tend not to trust them.

Over the last decade, city and state inspectors have cited the Auburn shelter for more than four hundred violations among them broken elevators, nonfunctioning bathrooms, faulty fire alarms, insufficient heat, spoiled food, sexual misconduct by staff, inadequate childcare...
-- Andrea Elliott (chapter 6)