I travel to know where I fit into the world, and where I don’t.

— Carew Papritz

It’s a fool who thinks having a kid is a right, which is the biggest crock of fish heads I’ve ever heard.

— Carew Papritz

It's a fool who thinks that having a kid is a right, which is the biggest crock of fish heads I’ve ever heard. You have a responsibility, not only to a person but also to a spirit because that’s what a child is. A pissing, crying, yawning, giggling, laughing package of spirit that is looking for you to take the lead. It’s a heck of a responsibility to look after a spirit.

— Carew Papritz

It’s a heck of a responsibility to look after a spirit. So give kids the best of who you are. That’s the most you can ever do.

— Carew Papritz

It's through traveling you make the great journey into yourself, and it's the clarity of extremes in traveling that forces you to meet yourself like you've never met yourself before.

— Carew Papritz

I want to remember... Smelling your newness upon this earth. The baby-Jesus smell as Grandma used to put it. Pure. Unsullied. Like the imagined smell in the twirling air of eiderdown feathers spin-floating around the yard on a new spring day.

— Carew Papritz

I want to remember warming your two a.m. bottle, clipping your locks, watching you be baptized, bathing you in the big porcelain sink… how I often laid you against my chest and felt the cradle song of your tiny breaths as you fell asleep. . .

— Carew Papritz

I wish I could wrap up the glitter star-green of this moment and hand it to you like an angel gift. Give you the heat lightning flying in jagged silence over the distant mountains. And the smell of September prairie grass and the even fainter scent of October pine now descending. . .

— Carew Papritz

Just because you're breathing, doesn't mean you're alive.

— Carew Papritz

Kids are kids and not little adults. They're watching and listening to you all the time. They're figuring out the game plan but still don't know all the rules. Talk straight to them and they'll respect you for it.

— Carew Papritz