I Don't Have To Participate

All I Try To Do Is Portray Indians As We Are, In Creative Ways. With Imagination And Poetry. I Think A Lot Of Native American Literature Is Stuck In One Idea: Sort Of Spiritual, Environmentalist Indians. And I Want To Portray Everyday Lives. I Think By Doing That, By Portraying The Ordinary Lives Of Indians, Perhaps People Learn Something New.

I Was A Controversial Figure On My Reservation When I Was A Kid. I Was Mouthy And Opinionated And Arrogant. Nothing Has Changed.

Well, I Think The Worst Part About Tribalism Is Its Tendency To Fundamentalize, And If I Can Fight Fundamentalism In Any Of Its Forms I'm Happy.

You Can't Sustain [anger]. You Become Bitter. Nothing's Going To Change. Anger Leads To Resentment, Then To Spiking Your Orange Juice, Then To Martyrdom.

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.