Life is not a plot; it's in the details.

Joseph Obomsawin, the elder I lived with there, says that those who turn to animals do so because humans have let them down.

Tradionally, parents made decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for his or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down.

words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.

This is what it always comes down to, I realized. There are the ones who believe, and the ones who don't, and caught in the space between them are guns.

Until this moment, I had not realized that someone could break your heart twice, along the very same fault lines.

People had figured out all sorts of ways to make things seem different than they truly were.