103 quotes
Lies couldn't call out the way truth does. They feared discovery. They were constantly confused and had soft edges that overlapped. (p45)
People of the Whale (2008)
It is a still day, everything silent. Even the wind isn't blowing. There is just a breeze of something living, like the breath of the universe. (p281)
People of the Whale (2008)
We live not only inside a body but within a story as well, and our story resides in the land as sure as the vision of Dorothea Lange's desperate, running horse. (p 204)
The Woman Who Watches Over the World: A Native Memoir (2001)
All of the animals I have known enter into my writing, become it. They are inspiration, research, and also my love.
Superstition Review (2013)
I see my everyday life in a historical context. We are living in the midst of history; it's important that somebody keeps records.
with Missouri Review (1992)
when the sun falls
and we are all one color
Dark. Sweet.: New & Selected Poems (2014)
I think it's easier for a non-Indian to write a book about Indian people and get it published than it is for us. Our own experiences and our own lives don't fit the stereotypes.
Winged Words (1990)
“What do you know and what do you just believe?” I thought about that for the longest time. I know nothing, I only believe in things. (Chapter 3, p67)
Power (1999)
it is a kind of hunger
that brings us to love
Dark. Sweet.: New & Selected Poems (2014)
It's been in the western history of science that the abstract has been idealized over matter. Until recently. As spirit has been preferred over body in the religious systems.
Conversations with the World by Phebe Davidson (1998)
Sometimes now I hear the voice of my great-grandmother, Agnes. It floats toward me like a soft breeze through an open window. (beginning of Prologue)
Solar Storms (1994)
I find that my process usually isn’t that I’m full of intention. It’s usually that I’m just open, and something comes to visit and tells me the story and creates it.
with Terrain.org (1999)
There is no real aloneness. There is solitude and the nurturing silence that is relationship with ourselves, but even then we are part of something larger. ("All My Relations" p41)
Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (1995)
I’m very concerned with human, animal, and plant survival, traditions that are ecologically sound, and indigenous knowledge systems, and how to convey these understandings of the world to a wide readership.
with Terrain.org (1999)
This is what I know from science:
that a grain of dust dwells at the center
of every flake of snow,
that ice can have its way with land,
that wolves live inside a circle
of their own beginning.
This is what I know from blood:
the first language is not our own.
The Book of Medicines (1993)
The people, are watching Ama, studying her. She’s a curiosity. She is a human being of a different kind. She makes them doubt, I see that. (Chapter 5, p134)
Power (1999)
I looked down, embarrassed, but she said only, "Some people see scars and it is wounding they remember. To me they are proof of the fact that there is healing." (p125)
Solar Storms (1994)
The planet is so much smaller than we ever thought in the past I think of the whole planet as home, a whole ecosystem that seems important to our growth as people and our survival.
Conversations with the World by Phebe Davidson (1998)
it has always been Ama’s skill to live with the world and not against it. (Chapter 3, p47)
Power (1999)
beginning and end together
the way sunlight on skin
is still connected
to the fiery storms of its origins
The Book of Medicines (1993)