If one mouse is a spark...then ten thousand are a conflagration.

If one mouse is a spark...then ten thousand are a conflagration.

I have been ineluctably drawn to libraries ever since I entered that sanctum sanctorum. It was a place of quietude. In a world where things go beep and ding and ring, where you’ve got mail and you’ve got messages, when I enter a library, I feel that I am still entering a temple.

I find that it takes a lot of years of living, and many more of reckoning, to come up with one worthwhile paragraph. And when a deadline looms, prayer doesnt hurt, either.

Because there is no nation so powerful it cannot be wounded, nor a people so small they cannot offer mighty comfort.

There are constant cycles in history. There is loss, but it is always followed by regeneration. The tales of our elders who remember such cycles are very important to us now.

I began telling stories as a volunteer in my daughters' school. But I grew up hearing stories from Cuban and Southern storytellers, and I learned a great deal by just being quiet and listening.