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.

Guilt can make you doubt yourself at the very moment when you need to proceed with certainty.

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

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

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.

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?

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.