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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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