"Everybody prayed, everybody lied about it. Even atheists prayed on airplanes and bingo nights."

"I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture."

"The dream he needed most was the dream that frightened him more."

"In high school I dated a white woman. She would come to visit me on the rez. And her dad, who was very racist, didn't like that at all. And he told her one time, 'You shouldn't go on the rez if you're white because Indians have a lot of anger in their heart.'"

"Read. Read 1000 pages for every 1 page that you write."

"Gay people were seen as magical, too. I mean, like in many cultures, men were viewed as warriors and women were viewed as caregivers. But gay people, being both male and female, were seen as both warriors and caregivers. Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss Army knives!"

"My sister is running away to get lost, but I am running away because I want to find something. And my parents love me so much that they want to help me. Yeah, Dad is a drunk and Mom is an ex-drunk, but they don't want their kids to be drunks."

"I knew I was being an idiot. But I figured if I kept being an idiot, if I didn't actually accept the truth, then the truth would become false."

"I can't remember how to cry."

"So I guess you were hopelessly romantic and easily distracted, a B-plus mother, certainly good enough to get into Matriarchal State University but not quite good enough for St. Mary's College of the Blessed Womb Warriors."

"My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage."

"That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like the disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice. I'm traveling heavy with illusions."

"If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads."

"Everyone I have lost in the closing of a doorthe click of the lockis not forgotten, theydo not die but remainwithin the soft edgesof the earth, the ashof house fires and cancerin sin and forgivenesshuddled under old blanketsdreaming their way intomy hands, my heartclosing tight like fists."

"He was my best friend and I needed him."

"And nostalgia is a cancer. Nostalgia will fill your heart up with tumors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what you are. You're just an old fart dying of terminal nostalgia."

"Walk the midway and hear the carnival barker.Come see the freak named after his deceased father.Come see the prince who wants to abdicate his throne.Come see the son whose name is carved on a gravestone."

"I learned how to stop crying.I learned how to hide inside of myself.I learned how to be somebody else.I learned how to be cold and numb."