I don’t recall the moment when I officially became a storyteller – a talented liar – but here I must quote Simon Ortiz, the Acoma Pueblo writer, who said, “Listen. If it’s fiction, then it better be true.
Why don’t you call somebody with the Coeur d’Alene tribe? A historian or somebody? Or be really crazy and ask one of our cousins what they know.” “I can’t,” I said. “I’m too embarrassed to let them know how much I don’t know.” “They’re sure gonna.
Grief is a plastic surgeon.
God, I wanted to be forgiven, but an apology offered to a dead man is only a selfish apology to yourself.
Well, you should be more careful where you drive,” the officer said. “You’re making people nervous. You don’t fit the profile of the neighborhood.” I wanted to tell him that I didn’t really fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble.
Self-preservation was my religion.
I am a zero on the rez. And if you subtract zero from zero, you still have zero. So what’s the point of subtracting when the answer is always the same?
I’d wanted to say something epic and honest. But epics are rarely honest, and honesty should never be epic.
I don’t grieve everybody that I have lost.
It’s not like anybody’s going to notice if you go away,” he said. “So you might as well gut it out.” Isn’t.
How many books do you have here?” Corliss asked. “Two million, one hundred thousand, and eleven,” the librarian said proudly, but Corliss was frightened. What happens to the world when that many books go unread? And what happens to the unread authors of those unread books?
But mostly it feels sad, often hopeless, and hot with loneliness.
I stupidly hoped that time would stand still if I stayed still.
Man, I’ve always cried too easily. I cry when I’m happy or sad. I cry when I’m angry. I cry because I’m crying. It’s weak. It’s the opposite of warrior.
He’s a big, goofy dreamer, too, just like me. He likes to pretend he lives inside the comic books. I guess a fake life inside a cartoon is a lot better than his real life. So I draw cartoons to make him happy, to give him other worlds to live inside. I draw his dreams. And he only talks about his dreams with me. And I only talk about my dreams with him.
I want all kinds of strangers to love me. The Indian horses screamed.
The old Indian women dipped wooden spoons into stews and stirred and stirred. The stews made of random vegetables and commodity food, of failed dreams and predictable tears.
Silence was his short bow and quiver of arrows.
If you weren’t good for making food, shelter, or babies, then you were tossed out on your own.
I made a list of my favorite books: 1. The Grapes of Wrath 2. Catcher in the Rye 3. Fat Kid Rules the World 4. Tangerine 5. Feed 6. Catalyst 7. Invisible Man 8. Fools Crow 9. Jar of Fools.
Be Still, be still, she would say between her teeth, but Arnold loved his body too much to remain still.