Even the doves were in mourning. The trees seemed to sigh at her leave-taking, and the windows of each building looked, to her, like sorrowful eyes. … - Kathleen Alcalá

By becoming a writer, you can rewrite history. ("Your Grandmother Might Have Been Mayor, or Why Write?", 1990)

Providing the narrative thread to life is one of the oldest functions in culture. People need storytellers. They make sense out of life. Instead of being an abstract concept, a road without an end, life becomes something that we can touch, hear, feel, taste, see. Chekhov gave us the Lady with the Dog, James Joyce gave us Leopold Bloom, Sandra Cisneros gave us Woman Hollering Creek, and by creating the specifics of a life, they give us a sense, they make sense of, life.

He was now in country which he had never before explored, the land of the Tarahumara, the indígenes famous for running long distances over the rough and unforgiving terrain, often, it was said, for the pure joy of it. (p134)