tears have a purpose. they are what we carry of the ocean, and perhaps we must become the sea, give ourselves to it, if we are to be transformed.

I resented my mother for guessing my innermost secrets. She was like God, everywhere at once knowing everything.

Telling about our lives is important for those who come after as, for those who will see our experience as part of their own historical struggle.

Sometimes there is a wellspring or river of something beautiful and possible in the tenderest sense that comes to and from the most broken of children, and I was one of these, and whatever is was, I can't name, I can only thank. Perhaps it is the water of life that saves us, after all.

tears have a purpose. they are what we carry of the ocean, and perhaps we must become the sea, give ourselves to it, if we are to be transformed.

The crocodile doesn't harm the bird that cleans his teeth for him. He eats the others but not that one.

It has seemed so strange to me that the larger culture, with its own absence of spirit and lack of attachment for the land, respects these very things about Indian traditions, without adopting those respected ways themselves.