If it wasn't for good," my mother says, "we human beings would have been wiped out a long time ago. Either the monsters would have gotten us or we would have killed each other off with greed and jealousy and anger. So we have to believe in good. We have to look for the good in ourselves.

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.

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?

There is a kind of certainty that seems to characterize Jared Smith's best work, an understanding about place and the flow of spirit that makes you think of Thoreau along with a commitment as fierce as that of Pablo Neruda.

Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon.

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

The best teachers have shown me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly - we only think it does.