Not knowing my birthday had never seemed strange. I knew I'd been born near the end of September, and each year I picked a day, one that didn't fall on a Sunday because it's no fun spending your birthday in church.

Forgiveness isn't just the absence of anger. I think it's also the presence of self-love, when you actually begin to value yourself.

I had been educated in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in which change was never fundamental, only cyclical. The same sun appeared each morning, swept over the valley, and dropped behind the peak. The snows that fell in winter always melted in the spring.

I have a theory that all abuse, no matter what kind of abuse it is, is foremost an assault on the mind.

We think about education as a stepping stone into a higher socio-economic class, into a better job. And it does do those things. But I don't think that's what it really is. I experienced it as getting access to different ideas and perspectives and using them to construct my own mind.

I think a lot of people have grown up with the idea that they can't learn things themselves. They think they need an institution to provide them with knowledge and teach them how to do things. I couldn't disagree more.