The sight of a Black nun strikes their sentimentality; and, as I am unalterably rooted in native ground, they consider me a work of primitive art, housed in a magical color; the incarnation of civilized, anti-heathenism, and the fruit of a triumphing idea.

The forest is the first cathedral. I felt that from the time I was a child. I credit my mother with that. I used to think it came from her Native-American side. Whichever it was, she instinctively connected with nature, and taught me that. Church just could not hold my spirit.

No song or poem will bear my mother's name. Yet so many of the stories that I write, that we all write, are my mother's stories.

Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.

For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.

Politically, the world is so confused right now - there's so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America's really large shadow and that's not all that bad.