For the storyteller, for the arrowmaker, language does indeed represent the only chance for survival.

In the beginning was the word, and it was spoken.

The turn of the century was the lowest point for the devastation of Indian culture by disease and persecution, and it's a wonder to me that they survived it and have not only maintained their identity, but are actually growing stronger in some ways. The situation is still very bad, especially in certain geographical areas, but there are more Indians going to school, more Indians becoming professional people, more Indians assuming full responsibility in our society. We have a long way to go, but we're making great strides.

It is here that I can concentrate my mind upon the Remembered Earth. It is here that I am most conscious of being, here that wonder comes upon my blood, here I want to live forever; and it is no matter that I must die.

To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion.

My father was a painter and he taught art. He once said to me, 'I never knew an Indian child who could not draw.'

There was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened. At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began. The Word did not come into being, but it was. It did not break upon the silence, but it was older than the silence and the silence was made of it.