top of page
.png){kind=small}
"I used to object to being called an Indian writer, and would always say I was a writer who happened to be an Indian, and who happened to write about Indians."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Being quotes
"It feels kinda weird being back in a high school cause I haven't been in a high school for about a year. So um, it's kinda interesting coming back, and y'know seeing the lockers, with all the signs, the handmade signs, so being in high school again is a little bit strange but in a good way."
"Being a mum has made me a lot more responsible, it's not just me anymore. But it's also brought me the most joy ever!"
"I'm such a video game fan that being able to do voices in video games is just fantastic."
"I feel it's important to show that one thing that you do doesn't define you as a human being. It doesn't mean there aren't ramifications or you shouldn't pay for that but its not who you are."
"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise."
"Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had."
"Here was a fragment of Goddess myth that, through all its permutations, had somehow escaped being turned on its head. It was the perfect springboard for the sort of novel I wanted to write."
Explore more quotes by James Welch
"The townspeople outside the reservations had a very superior attitude toward Indians, which was kind of funny, because they weren't very wealthy; they were on the fringes of society themselves."
"The economic piece is still missing, since it's so hard to attract industry to reservations, but spiritually and educationally, they're doing just fine. Each tribe has a community college now, and they teach the language, they teach the traditions."
"Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write, an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also, in a way, gave me permission to write about northern Montana."
"Nobody would take checks from Indians, nobody would give them any credit, and nobody would let them drink in the bars. There was a rudeness, a brusqueness, with which the Indians were treated constantly. At a very young age, that had entered my consciousness."
"The title of the poems was The Only Bar in Dixon. We sent it out to The New Yorker on a fluke, and they took them and printed all three in the same issue."
"I wander around, get the lay of the land and try to imagine what kind of people would have lived there in that historical period. What would they eat? What kind of clothing would they wear? How did they shelter themselves? How did they get around?"
"My poems were just kind of all over the place. They had no focus, no location, nothing. Kind of a series of images that could have been set anywhere. A lot of the poems were just exercises for myself."
"Before, Indian people had been so defeated, they were always looking for outsiders, for the government, to somehow come in and fix things. But now, they seem to realize that they're the only ones who can save themselves."
bottom of page