But sometimes what we call 'memory' and what we call 'imagination' are not so easily distinguished.

As long as the hummingbird had not abandoned the land, somewhere there were still flowers, and they could all go on.

I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.

But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone. As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together.

Because if you weren't born white, you were forced to see differences; or if you weren't born what they called normal, or if you got injured, then you were left to explore the world of the different.

the ancient people perceived the world and themselves within that world as part of an ancient continuous story composed of innumerable bundles of other stories.

What is it about us human beings that we can’t let go of lost things?

You don't have anything if you don't have the stories.

Writing cant change the world overnight, but writing may have an enormous effect over time, over the long haul.

Anybody can act violently - there is nothing to it; but not every person is able to destroy his enemy with words.

The Indian wars have never ended in the Americas.

My fingers itched to touch, my lips begged to taste and my body buzzed with a frenzied energy, but my mind screamed to move far away from him fast.

Being submissive is not being oppressed.

The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving: Even the simplest food is a gift.

One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.

One of the things I believe in is a sense of human nature.

It's nice to live in a country that has its priorities straight: the library's open three hours a week, and the House of Fist is 24/7.

I believe in the curative powers of love as the English believe in tea or Catholics believe in the Miracle of Lourdes.

Now I'm doing a film festival for kids and writing a script about a kidnapped journalist in Afghanistan.

Books are savaged and careers destroyed by surly snots who write anonymous reviews and publishers can't be bothered to protest this institutionalized corruption.

I make music that I know that people will enjoy, and balance the ideas and philosophy that we put in music with music that when we play it live, people can move to it and groove to it.