Stories live in your blood and bones, follow the seasons and light candles on the darkest night-every storyteller knows she or he is also a teacher.

Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it.

You know, if you hang around this earth long enough you really see how things come full circle.

it ultimately doesn't matter which disease gnaws away at the body - it looks the same. The flesh surrenders, grows exhausted, and the eyes ask why.

I had this odd sibling rivalry with America.

I don't think it's an accident who our parents are; I believe we choose them. So maybe I chose my parents in order to effect change.

America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us.