He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.

A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.

In a sense, you're always mythologizing your life; it's always an effort to make yourself epic. At least in fiction you can lie and sort of justify your delusion about your "epicness." But when you're writing a memoir, you're trying to make your life epic and it's not - nobody's life is.

The librarian spoke in a reverential whisper. Corliss knew she'd misjudged this passionate woman. Maybe she dressed poorly, but she was probably great in bed, certainly believed in God and goodness, and kept an illicit collection of overdue library books on her shelves.

That's one more thing people don't know about Indians: We love to talk dirty.

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.