[i]We were fighting so very hard and achieving so very little aside from staying alive. BUT THAT’S EVERYTHING, my father wrote to me, when I told him that in a letter.[/i]

He honestly expected her to believe that she could make a bad offering and her ancestors wouldn't mind.

She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess.

I would like to have nothing to do with you for hours on end and then come back and find you, come back with things I’ve thought and found all on my own— on my own, not through you.

… there’s a difference between having no one because you’ve chosen it and having no one because everyone has been taken away.

We are like travelers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs.

But they get some comfort out of the made up stories. And if that helps them get along maybe I should not poke fun.

Love is sweet even when what you go through is bitter.

It's an objective fact that I am a double amputee, but it's very subjective opinion as to whether that makes me disabled.

The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.

Healing requires taking action-it is not a passive event.

Initiative and referendum make government more responsive to its citizens, neutralize the power of the special interests and stimulate public involvement in state issues.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

You have to defend your character. That's your job, if they're hiring you. That doesn't mean you can't collaborate, but you do have to make some big, bold choices. We do that in real life, too.

At the same time I really enjoy painting flesh.