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.

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

Never think that war is a good thing, grandchildren. Though it may be necessary at times to defend our people, war is a sickness that must be cured. War is a time out of balance. When it is truly over, we must work to restore peace and sacred harmony once again.

One of the things I've been taught by Native American elders is the importance of patience, of waiting to do things when the time is right. As an Onondaga friend put it to me, "you can't pick berries until the berries are ripe."

When the Lakota leader Sitting Bull was asked by a white reporter why his people loved and respected him, Sitting Bull replied by asking if it was not true that among white people a man is respected because he has many horses, many houses? When the reporter replied that was indeed true, Sitting Bull then said that his people respected him because he kept nothing for himself.

Kill every enemy twice, Wilky said. Better than gettin' shot by a soldier pretending to be dead.

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?