I used to sleep with my books in piles all over my bed and sometimes they were the only thing keeping me warm and always the only thing keeping me alive. Books are the best and worst defense.

...there are some children who aren't really children at all, they're just pillars of flame that burn everything they touch. And there are some children who are just pillars of ash, that fall apart when you touch them..." ~ Thomas Builds-the-Fire (played by Evan Adams) in Alexie's "Smoke Signals

I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.

These are things you should learn. Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you; your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you. Maybe you don’t wear a watch, but your skeletons do, and they always know what time it is. Now, these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices. And they can trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming. But they’re not necessarily evil, unless you let them be.

We all have to find our own ways to say good-bye.

Well, as a native, as a colonized people you do live in the in between. The thing is I'm native. But necessarily because I'm a member of the country, I'm also a White American.

and then she asks me how many sexual partners I've had and I say one or two depending on your definition of what I did to Custer . . .