When we were born we were blank pieces of paper; nothing had been written yet. - Naomi Shihab Nye

All our roots go deep down, even if they’re tangled (p199)

I suggest that blood be bigger than what we're born with, that blood keep growing and growing as we live; otherwise how will we become true citizens of the world? For twenty years, working as a visiting writer in dozens of schools in my city and elsewhere. I have carried poems by writers of many cultures into classrooms, feeling the large family of voices linking human experience. We have no borders when we read.

Being little was a skin that fit. (p11)