I still have great faith in democracy. I have great belief in the power of community.

When Emily Dickinson writes, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” she reminds us, as the birds do, of the liberation and pragmatism of belief.

memory is the only way home.

The human heart is the first home of democracy.

The Japanese have a word - aware - which, in my understanding is, again, that full range - both the joy and the sorrow of our life. One does not exist without the other. And I really feel that.

Storytelling is the oldest form of education.

I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home.