“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.”

“The past informs the present. Memory makes the map we carry, no matter how hard we try to erase it.”

“The writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future.”

“Nothing has ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”

“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.”

“I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.”