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
See more on GoodReads
“Through these days Bunny made increasingly frequent and protracted visits to the bathroom, beating off with a single-minded savagery intense even by Bunny's standards. Now, sitting on the sofa with a large Scotch, his cock feels and looks like something that has been involved in a terrible accident - a cartoon hotdog, maybe, that has made an unsuccessful attempt to cross a busy road.
The boy sits beside him and the two of them are locked in a parenthesis of mutual zonkedness. Bunny Junior stares blankly at the encyclopedia open in his lap. His father watches the television, smokes his fag and drinks his whisky, like an automaton.
After a time, Bunny turns his head and looks at his son and clocks the way he stares at his weird encyclopedia. He sees him but he can't really believe he is there. What does this kid want? What is he supposed to do with him? Who is he? Bunny feels like an extinct volcano, lifeless and paralysed. Yeah, he thinks, I feel like an extinct volcano - with a weird little kid to look after and a mangled sausage for a dick.”
― Nick Cave, quote from The Death of Bunny Munro
“I thought of every strong woman I knew about—my mother, Muriel, my best friends . . . Buffy the Vampire Slayer . . . I would not back down. I would not surrender.”
― Gwen Hayes, quote from Dreaming Awake
“The great hospitals, houses of confinement, establishments of religion and public order, of assistance and punishment, of governmental charity and welfare measures, are a phenomenon of the classical period:”
― Michel Foucault, quote from Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
“On the other hand, for years I did not listen to Mozart after I was assaulted by the perverse idea that Mozart does not exist, because when he is good he is Beethoven and when he is bad he is Haydn.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Living to Tell the Tale
“Things worth having don't come easy... You have to fight for it until you're tired of fighting, and then you take a breather and fight some more ... Don't give up. You'll regret it.”
― Abbi Glines, quote from You Were Mine
Promises
Alta
I Can See You
How to Be Good
The Path to Power
Interred with Their...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.
