We Americans are tempted to distinguish ourselves from other current and former inhabitants of this planet by assuming that we are ruled by progress.

I watched the way you watch when you know you want to remember.

At different stages in our lives, the signs of love may vary: dependence, attraction, contentment, worry, loyalty, grief, but at heart the source is always the same. Human beings have the rare capacity to connect with each other, against all odds

Don't ask so many questions and they will all be answered.

I certainly don't object to [writers] trying to imagine the lives of other societies, but you have to do it with a certain amount of humility and respect. If it were not for the ethnographic material that had been collected by missionaries and anthropologists and so forth, much of past Native American society would no longer be accessible. What I object to is making kitsch of things that are very serious.

To be known for one's saddest story is not the road to notoriety anyone would willingly choose.

Grandfather was well known for being stubborn in his ideas. For instance... you had to go to sleep facing east so that you would be ready to greet the sun when it returned.