Nature, or the world, or reality, is what mythology is all about.

Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control.

A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is chiefly to add that a woman who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep as well .

Popularity isn't just something that happens. You have to give something in exchange for it, and that's the dangerous part of the process.

Every Native North American text I've ever grappled with has taught me something important about how to live on the continent where I was born.

Many intellectual heroes in the European tradition seem to find the great outdoors a chilling prospect - and its literary analogue, the mythworld, equally chilling. As if a world in which humans have no leverage, and might not be present at all, couldn't be interesting to humans.

When you die, your culture takes you in, and then, if you've given enough, your place is near the centre.