I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture.

Last September 16th, I was walking in downtown Seattle when this pick-up truck pulls up in front of me. Guy leans out the window and yells, "Go back to your own country," and I was laughing so hard because it wasn't so much a hate crime as a crime of irony.

I suddenly understood that if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of a life should be taken seriously as well.

Non-Indian writers usually say "Great Spirit," "Mother Earth," "Two-Legged, Four-Legged, and Winged." Mixed-blood writers usually say "Creator, "Mother Earth," "Two-Legged, Four- Legged, and Winged." Indian writers usually say "God," "Mother Earth," "Human Being, Dog, and Bird."

It was so quiet, a reservation kind of quiet, where you can hear somebody drinking whiskey on the rocks three miles away.

Unlike landed white men, she didn't need to climb mountains to experience mystic panic. All she needed was to set her alarm dock for the next morning, wake when it rang, and go to class.

...And nostalgia is a cancer. Nostalgia will fill your heart up with tumors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what you are. You're just an old fart dying of terminal nostalgia.