It was becoming a habit-this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had. *Milkman*

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can.

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my remory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think if, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.

Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.

Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took away all the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.