I had lost too much of the heart and all the faith needed to stay afloat in a job where every human encounter felt like an anvil strung around my neck just when I thought I was nearing the shore.

At night my father often heard sporadic gunfire mixed in with the sound of dogs howling. If the war came closer, soon there would be only minor difference between shooting a dog and shooting a man.

You see, at the beginning we weren't fighters. We weren't yellers or throwers, even if we eventually came to be. It would take time and much deeper wounds for us to get to that point.

We persist and linger longer than we think, leaving traces of ourselves wherever we go. If you take that away, then we all simply vanish.

Personally, its a comfort and happiness to know that my work is taken seriously and is not marginalised and put in a box of ethnic immigrant writing in America.

In fact, there is nothing so easily remade as our definitions of ourselves.

Smartass Disciple: Master, please show me the way to the enlightenment.Master of Stupidity: Walk with me! [but I won't let you try to surpass me].

I am very concerned about the environment and psychological health of this beautiful planet.

Who I am inside determines how I feel about my body instead of the other way around

To play well you have to have good balance in your life. Tiger has found that. If you play golf long enough you'll learn that life is more than golf.

Your trials can release your Gifts and Dreams. Your trials can set you free.

The "terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

We women in Somalia are trying to be leaders in our community.

The theory of evolution explains to us what our ancestry has been. It does not explain away our worth. Why should we be afraid to learn more about what we are?

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

I think people should consume their music any way they want. If it's more practical for them to listen to it on an iPod or something, that's fine by me.