On any state elections map, the reservations are blue places. Native people are most often progressives, Democrats, and by no means gun-toting vigilantes.

Columbus only discovered that he was in some new place. He didn't discover America.

I write first drafts by hand. Never do I open an umbrella inside the house. I don't predict wins or losses. I used to stand on a certain piece of rug if my brothers and husband were watching football and their team got in trouble - but now the luck went out of that rug. If a circle is involved, I try to go clockwise.

I grew up in Wahpeton, N.D., and I didn't leave until I was 18, and I've kept going back.

I didn't have a normal academic career. I never studied cinema. I learned from life.

The national championship for Syracuse in 2003 will always be the high-water mark for me. That was my alma mater, my team, my players, our fans. That remains the top experience of my basketball life.

I learned that struggle was part of life.

The popular songs that were written in the 1920s and '30s, '40s and early '50s were written by veterans - mostly men who'd had experience in life. How can you write a lyric if you haven't really lived life?