All she saw, down in the cellar well beneath the stoop, was a light yellow feather with a tip of green. And she had never named him. Had called him "my parrot" all these years. "My parrot." "Love you. "Love you." Did the dogs get him? Or did he get the message - that she said, "My parrot" and he said, "Love you," and she had never said it back or even taken the trouble to name him - and manage somehow to fly away on wings that had not soared for six years.

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.

The difference between that which is humane and that which is patriotic is a vital difference.

A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.

Sometimes the names were humiliating, deliberately so. Somebody would pick out your flaw. If you were little, they would call you Shorty. And if you were angry, they would call you the Devil.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.