Love and death,” my father said. “It’s all love and death.
But my grandmother wanted us to forgive her murderer.
He was a white man and, therefore, he was allowed to be romantic.
Because someone needs to help you die the right way,” she said. “And we both know that dying ain’t something you ever done before.
But God has a way of making things even out, I guess.
I wasn’t there when the old Indian man from Worley said it, but I know it must be true: Every highway in the world crosses some reservation, cuts it in half.
But it happens mostly because “being American” means “being white,” even for a brown boy like me.
Ah, friend, this world – this one universe – Is already too expansive for me. When I die, let my mourners know That I shrugged at the possibility Of other universes. Hire a choir – Let them tell the truth But tell it choral – Let the assembled voices sing About my theology: I’m the fragile and finite mortal Who wanted no part of immortality. 27.
Or maybe I could have anesthetized myself with homework and extra credit and binge-reading.
What scares me least? The Afterlife. Really. Who cares? I’m going to be a good person no matter what is supposed to happen after I die.
Am I defined by what I’ve seen, or do I define the world by what I’ve witnessed? O, what beautiful or terrible thing waits around the next corner? Who isn’t in love with this mystery?
Can a book rightfully be called a book if it never gets read?
If a tree falls in a forest and gets pulped to make paper for a book that never gets read, but there’s nobody there to read it, does it make a sound?
Sometimes you don’t something is true until you hear it for the first time.
Poverty was our spirit animal.
Why did you punch him?” she asked. “He was bullying me.” “You should have just walked away.” “He called me ‘chief.’ And ‘squaw boy.’ ” “Then you should have kicked him in the balls.
My parents sold blood for money to buy food. Poverty was our spirit animal.
When people consider the meaning of genocide, they might only think of corpses being pushed into mass graves. But a person can be genocided – can have every connection to his past severed – and live to be an old man whose rib cage is a haunted house built around his heart.
I really miss those cafeterias they use to have in Kmart. I don’t know why they stopped having those. If there is a Heaven then I firmly believe it’s a Kmart cafeteria.
He was like some kind of Star Wars alien creature with invisible tentacles that sucked your thoughts out of your brain.