Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.....For years we have been learning, practicing, been in training for...and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

Be wild; that is how to clear the river.

When seeking guidance, don't ever listen to the tiny-hearted. Be kind to them, heap them with blessing, cajole them, but do not follow their advice.

If women were in charge of everything, there would be women tyrants. If black people were in charge, there would be black tyrants. If Hispanics were in charge, then Hispanic tyrants.

Stories are medicine. I have been taken with stories since I heard my first. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act, anything -- we need only listen.

I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you,and that you will work with these stories from your life -- not someone else's life -- water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is the work. The only work.

Be proud of your scars. They have everything to do with your strength, and what you've endured. They're a treasure map to the deep self.

We all wish to be brave and strong in the face of disaster. We all wish to be looked up to for our endurance and efforts to help others.

Respect in the face of great power is a crucial lesson. A woman must be able to stand in the face of power, because ultimately some part of that power will become hers.

The most important thing is to hold on, hold out, for your creative life, for your solitude, for your time to be and do, for your very life.

We practice conscious forgetting by refusing to summon up the fiery material, we refuse to recollect. To forget is an active, not a passive, endeavor. It means to not haul up certain materials, or turn them over and over, to not work oneself up by repetitive thought, picture, or emotion.

Than Shwe ordered the confiscation of all cell phones and laptops and computers so no reportage could come out of Burma. It seemed clear that a demon, something diabolical, rather than something compassionate and human was in charge of Burma.

Stories that rise from deep suffering can provide the most potent remedies for past, present, and even future ills.

A runner is real when she takes the first step.

There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.

It is not the failure that holds us back but the reluctance to begin over again that causes us to stagnate.

No Latina woman would be called 'Ms.' -- that's an invention of middle-class Anglo women. Latina women are proud to be called 'Mrs.' That simply means that we have a family.

That is what the intuition is for: it is the direct messenger of the soul.

To reasoned people, almost everything is understandable, but evil is forever incomprehensible.