What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance

by Carolyn Forché

A poet had once cautioned me not to live a life that was more vibrant and intense than my inner life, that inner and outer must at least be kept in balance, but if one was to gather strength over the other, let it be the life within.

Lesson number four: If someone promises to do great things, ask them first for something small, like a bridge or a cow.”

“Papu, listen to me. You have to be able to see the world as it is, to see how it is put together, and you have to be able to say what you see. And get angry.”