The distance between the adolescent and the true adult is about five thousand miles, but the distance between the adult and the elder is almost as large.

Transcendence or detachment, leaving the body, pure love, lack of jealousy-that's the vision we are given in our culture, generally, when we think of the highest thing. . . . Another way to look at it is that the aim of the person is not to be detached, but to be more attached-to be attached to working; to be attached to making chairs or something that helps everyone; to be attached to beauty; to be attached to music.

One could say the higher the spirit goes, the more deeply the soul sinks down into the waters of melancholy and tragedy. Drowning in that water is as sweet as rising.

Every part of you that you do not love will regress and become hostile towards you.

There are a lot of men who are healthier at age fifty then they have ever been before, because a lot of their fear is gone.

Adolescents are in just as much trouble in Native America as they are in the white community.

Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.