Storytelling was a way to see the world bigger than the one you were looking at, and that had great appeal for me. I think, since that was part of my upbringing, it became part of me, and I wanted to pass it along to my kids and my grandkids.
When we looked at the life cycle in our 40s, we looked to old people for wisdom. At 80, though, we look at other 80-year-olds to see who got wise and who not. Lots of old people don't get wise, but you don't get wise unless you age.
With the ancient [person] is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.
I used to love to sit and listen to the old people talk about yesterday. There's a lot of good information there.
One learns more from listening than speaking. And both the wind and the people who continue to live close to nature still have much to tell us which we cannot hear within university walls.
The old idea that you grow wiser as you get older, and you learn from your elders, is actually completely wrong.
Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.
Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.
Remember the days of old, Think of the generations of long ago; Ask your father to recount it And your elders to tell the tale.
I came back from Standing Rock, and one of the things that struck me was their respect for elders. It was something that I felt like I needed to work on in my life.
My daddy - whenever he wanted to teach us a lesson, he'd tell us a story. It's an Old South tradition.
Before we were born, a whole society of storytellers was already here. The storytellers who were here before us taught us how to be human.
But probably that's the way of the world - when we have finally learned something we're too old to apply it - and so it goes, wave after wave, generation after generation. No one learns anything at all from anyone else.
One of the things I've been taught by Native American elders is the importance of patience, of waiting to do things when the time is right.
