I love memoirs. They are probably my favorite literary form, along with biographies. The more confessional, the better. There is so, so, so little truth in the popular culture, and I am starved and grateful for any I can find.

Expectations are resentment waiting to happen.

For twenty years I have ached to go back home, when there was nobody there to whom I could return.

Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor.

Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet. quoting her pastor in Salon, April 25, 2003

I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.

I was raised with no religious training or influence. Except the influence was to be a moral and ethical person at the secular level. And to be a peace marcher, an activist for civil rights, peace and justice.