A journal is a very personal thing. As far as possible, to write this sort of book you need to know and feel your character as a person and then put yourself into that person's mind, place and time. Trying to stay in that person, place and time is a challenge when surrounded by this very different world of the 21st century.

Knowledge is easy to come by. Understanding what you know takes much longer.

Do we make ourselves into what we become or is it built into our genes, into the fate spun for us by whatever shapes events?

As long as we can remember them, our families will always be with us.

The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly--we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone's life.

Native people such as the Cherokees are just as human and complex and real as Americans are, and our nation needs to respect American Indian cultures and traditions.

A story is a burden which must be carried with as much care as we carry a sleeping child