As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look.

It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.

I'm amazed when I think about students today. They know from day one what they are going to be. We didn't. We just coasted. We just knew that things would work out.

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write. That's my own taste. I prefer to stumble on it.

Nobody can teach me who I am.