If it wasn't for good," my mother says, "we human beings would have been wiped out a long time ago. Either the monsters would have gotten us or we would have killed each other off with greed and jealousy and anger. So we have to believe in good. We have to look for the good in ourselves.

A journal is a very personal thing. As far as possible, to write this sort of book you need to know and feel your character as a person and then put yourself into that person's mind, place and time. Trying to stay in that person, place and time is a challenge when surrounded by this very different world of the 21st century.

There is a kind of certainty that seems to characterize Jared Smith's best work, an understanding about place and the flow of spirit that makes you think of Thoreau along with a commitment as fierce as that of Pablo Neruda.

Never think that war is a good thing, grandchildren. Though it may be necessary at times to defend our people, war is a sickness that must be cured. War is a time out of balance. When it is truly over, we must work to restore peace and sacred harmony once again.

As long as we can remember them, our families will always be with us.

Guilt can make you doubt yourself at the very moment when you need to proceed with certainty.

When the Lakota leader Sitting Bull was asked by a white reporter why his people loved and respected him, Sitting Bull replied by asking if it was not true that among white people a man is respected because he has many horses, many houses? When the reporter replied that was indeed true, Sitting Bull then said that his people respected him because he kept nothing for himself.