Quotes from American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon

256 pages

Rating: (1.5K votes)


“There's a fine line between being practical and being a candyass, which is a word that my father used to describe someone whom he considered to be the opposite of tough. ... Because I'm very afraid of becoming a candyass, I'll sometimes do things that I know to be impractical just so I don't have to worry about being a candyass.”
― quote from American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon


“At once [the buffalo] is a symbol of the tenacity of wilderness and the destruction of wilderness; it's a symbol of Native American culture and the death of Native American culture; it's a symbol of the strength and vitality of America and the pettiness and greed of America; it represents a frontier both forgotten and remembered; it stands for freedom and captivity, extinction and salvation.”
― quote from American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon


“Every schoolboy knows that the Indians used every part of the buffalo, which is true. But they did not use every part of every buffalo.”
― quote from American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon


“I used to be endlessly troubled by meat-eating people who were uneasy with hunters and hunting. ... How can someone suggest that paying for the slaughter of animals is more justifiable than taking the responsibility for one's food into one's own hands? ... Civilization is a mechanism that allows us to avoid the necessary but ugly aspects of life; most of us do not euthanize our own pets, we don't unplug the life support on our own ailing grandparents, we don't repair our own cars, and we don't process our own raw sewage. Instead, the delegations of our less-pleasant responsibilities is so widespread that taking these things on is almost like trying to swim upriver. It's easier not to do them, and those who insist on doing so are bound to look a little odd.”
― quote from American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon


“Indians only needed so many implements and decorations. If a tribe drove three hundred buffalo over a cliff, they wouldn’t feel obligated to make twenty-four hundred buffalo-hoof spoons and six hundred buffalo-horn charcoal carriers. Rather, they might just take the meat and hides from the best-looking female buffalo, those that weren’t too smashed up or buried under other buffalo. That might be all they touched. After all, their time and energy had value, just as ours does.”
― quote from American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon



Video

Popular quotes

“I didn't betray you. I was used. I was set up.”
― Michael Grant, quote from BZRK


“I am only a shell where the ocean is still sounding.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, quote from Selected Poems


“Lois. Oh… no. Lois. Dinner. His name … be it Clark Kent or Superman …was mud. –Clark Kent”
― C.J. Cherryh, quote from Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel


“My mind is like the valley—this vast barren waste. Car lots. Malls. Tract homes. I know there are other worlds beyond it—of canyons full of coyote and monarch butterflies, squirrels, bunnies, purple and yellow wildflowers, of magical boulevards lined with palatial movie theaters and movie-star haunted mansions, of parks and palms and palisades, especially, especially of the ocean, where it all ends and everything begins. I know the rest is out there but from where I sit in my head it’s like being on the bottom of a hot sunken pit—you can’t see anything else around you no matter how hard you try.”
― Francesca Lia Block, quote from Wasteland


“Love you too Chess. You got that aye? Ain't you know it? Love you right, till it hurts. Ain't going nowhere…………”
― Stacia Kane, quote from Sacrificial Magic


Interesting books

Night of the Soul Stealer
(22.9K)
Night of the Soul St...
by Joseph Delaney
In His Steps
(20.7K)
In His Steps
by Charles M. Sheldon
Timeless
(9.7K)
Timeless
by Alexandra Monir
One for the Murphys
(19.5K)
One for the Murphys
by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Prokleta avlija
(5.7K)
Prokleta avlija
by Ivo Andrić
Tall, Tatted and Tempting
(25.8K)

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.