Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.

For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event.

Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light.

It's bliss when you give up all that stuff that separates you from other human beings. It's hard, but you break down all that stuff.

There's a contract that I make between myself, the author, and the reader. I have to figure out how to give the reader certain powers of recognition, or his own knowledge, his own feelings, but I provide them, so we're working together.

If we had no language we'd have nothing.

Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my remory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think if, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.