John (Fire) Lame Deer · 352 pages
Rating: (1.5K votes)
“Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can't have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a an was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were to uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man's worth couldn't be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorneys or politicians, therefore we couldn't cheat. We really were in a bad way before the white men came, and I don't know how we managed to get along without these basic things which, we are told, are absolutly necessary to make a civilized society.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“All Creatures exist for a purpose. Even an ant knows what that purpose is--not with its brain, but somehow it knows. Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“If this earth should ever be destroyed, it will be by desire, by the lust of pleasure and self-gratification, by greed of the green frog skin, by people who are mindful of their own self, forgetting about the wants of others.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan—the holy air—which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Woniya—we sit together, don’t touch,
but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as to our relatives.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“We make bear sounds, talk bear language when we are in a fighting mood. "Harrnh"--and you are as good as gone.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
John (Fire) Lame Deer
Born place: South Dakota, The United States
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“Can’t seal up a conversation with a casual Oh, by the way, could you perhaps not touch me the way you always have because each time it puts fresh splinters in my heart? Particularly when what I’d really like to say is Oh, by the way, could you please keep touching me, and perhaps do it all the time, and while we’re at it, would you like to take off all your clothes and climb in bed? They’re both weighted alike.”
― Mackenzi Lee, quote from The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
“Humans are often this way. They go about their lives, constantly working, complaining of boredom one minute and overwork the next. They pause only to observe the niceties of society, greeting each other with 'Good morning' while their minds are somewhere else completely.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from In the Forests of the Night
“Think God’s got bigger concerns in his house than me droppin’ the f-bomb, sweetcheeks.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Golden Trail
“Even before the withdrawal sets in, you'll do anything to get that feeling back, because as long as it lasts, nothing's wrong. It doesn't matter if you forget something, or lose something. Or if you fail someone. Nothing's wrong and everything feels good, and you never want it to end.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from My Soul to Keep
“In a hole, in a hole.” Skodi piped, “. . . in the ground, in a hole, where the wet-nosed mole sings a song of cold stone, and of mud and gray bone, a quiet, small song all the chill, dark night long as he digs in the deep, where the white worms creep, and the dead all sleep, with their eyes full of earth where the beetles give birth, laying little white eggs, and their brittle black legs go scrape, scrape, scrape, and the dark, like a cape, covers all just the same, darkness hiding their shame as it covered their names, the names of the dead, all gone, all fled, empty winds, empty heads, Above grass grows on stone, fields lie fallow, unsown all is gone that they’ve known so they wail in the deep, crying out in their sleep, without eyes, still they weep, calling out for what’s lost, in the darkness they toss, under pitweed and moss in the deeps of the grave, neither master or slave, has now feature or fame, needs knowledge or name, but they long to come back, and they stare through the cracks at the dim sun above, and they curse cruel love, and the peace lost in life, think of worry and strife, ruined child or wife, all the troubles that burned, dreadful lessons unlearned, still they long to return, to return, to return, they long to return. Return! In a hole, in the ground, under old barrow-mound, where skin, bone, and blood turn to jelly-soft mud, and the rotting world sings . . .”
― Tad Williams, quote from Stone of Farewell
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