I do know that if you can name certain things and understand them, it allows you to make better choices. Unfortunately, there's so much misinformation that towers over a person's head, it's really difficult to make the right decisions. Consequently, we just go along because it's way too hard to sift through the information.

I am learning to look at myself differently, to see the scattered remnants of hope and dreams and collect them again.

I can't stand the comfort zone. So many people I know, their parents give them their homes, and they get married and have children, or whatever. That's it. They don't ever go beyond that. That's not what life is.

One thing America truly does stand for is a million different ways of living. But while we enjoy the lives we have, we're so privileged. We live in a world that's so far from what the Palestinian children are going through, it's unbelievable. Yet if we dare to get close to that atrocity and name it, it would shock us so badly we couldn't live in our privileged comfort zone.

The whole thing is this: If you don't use just basic grammar, if you don't get the language down, you're not going to have access to a tool that people use as a weapon against you. The only reason I was never taught to read and write was because it was easier for them to lead me. But the second I learned to read and write, I began to lead myself.

Literacy is freedom, and everyone has something significant to say.

Understanding is the key to everything. To rage, fear, love. If you understand a situation, it's going to make you mad. Or it's going to make you feel fearful. If any of us even had a clue as to what Bush and those people were up to, we'd be running stark crazy mad out of fear.