Before we can leave our parents, they stuff our heads like the suitcases which they jam-pack with homemade underwear.

You must not tell anyone,' my mother said, 'what I am about to tell you.'

The swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar. May my people understand the resemblance soon so that I can return to them. What we have in common are the words at our backs. The idioms for revenge are 'report a crime' and 'report to five families.' The reporting is the vengeance-not the beheading, not the gutting, but the words.

In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.

Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.

A story can take you through a whole process of searching, seeking, confronting, through conflicts, and then to a resolution. As the storyteller and the listener, we go through a story together.

Any merchant who advertises 'Honest Scales' must have been thinking about weighing them.