Quotes from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

Jim Fergus ·  434 pages

Rating: (97.6K votes)


“Don't you know that I laugh because it is my last defense against tears?

― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“...how odd to think of one's life not as chapters in a book but as complete volumes, separate and distinct.

― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“that's exactly the good thing about the Injun life--you don't have to stop and think about whether or not you're 'happy'--which in my opinionis a highly overrated human condition invented by white folks”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“Your power as a woman, as a mother, is your medicine, and it saved you. Take your courage in that.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“I push him from my mind. This is no act of easy omission on my part; I do not consign him casually to a forgotten past. It is rather an act of will--a kind of self-performed surgery on my soul...the bloodiest of mutilations.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd



“I, personally, have resolved never to display weakness, to be always strong and firm and forthright, to show neither fear nor uncertainty-- no matter how fearful and uncertain I may be inside; I see no other way to survive this ordeal.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“Ah but Art never fails anyone, magic and medicine may certainly fail, but never Art.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“But others of us believed that the only true happiness our Sara had ever known in her short life on this earth had been among these people. And we wished for her soul to go to the place the Cheyennes called Seano – the place of the dead – which is reached by following the Hanging Road in the Sky, the Milky Way. Here the Cheyennes believe that all the People who have ever died live with their Creator, He’amaveho’e. In Seano they live in villages just as they did on earth – hunting, working, eating, playing, loving, and making war. And all go to the place of the dead, regardless of whether they were good or bad on earth, virtuous or evil, brave or cowardly – everyone – and eventually in Seano all are reunited with the souls of their loved ones.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“can’t help but think once again what a foolish, loutish creature is man. Is there another on earth that kills for the pure joy of it?”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“Good-bye, Harry, wherever you may be … never has it been more clear to me that the part of my life which you occupied is over forever … I could not be further away from you if I were on the moon … how odd to think of one’s life not as chapters in a book but as complete volumes, separate and distinct.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd



“My definition of LUNATIC ASYLUM: A place where lunatics are created.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“It was our understanding that we were to be instructing them in the ways of the civilized world, not being made beasts of burden, but, as Helen Flight has pointed out, of what use are table manners to those without tables.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


“Franchement vu la façon dont j'ai été traitée par les gens dits "civilisés", il me tarde finalement d'aller vivre chez les sauvages.”
― Jim Fergus, quote from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd


About the author

Jim Fergus
Born place: in Chicago, The United States
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