Quotes from Forrest Carter

You cannot know where your people are going if you don't know where your people have been.

It is good that a man's enemies want him dead, for it proves he has lived a life of worth.

Everything growing wild is a hundred times stronger than tame things.

Indian believes they ain't but two sins... bein a coward... and turnin agin yer own kind.

He loves deep... hates hard, ever'thing's that killed what he loves. All great warriors are sich men.

Then sometime there in late March, after the Indian violets had come, we would be gathering on the mountain and the wind, raw and mean, would change for just a second. It would touch your face as soft as a feather. It had an earth smell. You knew springtime was on the way. The next day, or the next (you would commence to hold your face out for the feel), the soft touch would come again. It would last a little longer and be sweeter and smell stronger.

Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is.

Granpa said if there was less words, there wouldn't be as much trouble in the world. He said privately to me that there was always some damn fool making up a word that served no purpose except to cause trouble.

Granma said when you come on something good, first thing to do is share it with whoever you can find; that way, the good spreads out where no telling it will go. Which is right.

I felt total bad about it, and empty. Granpa said he knew how I felt, for he was feeling the same way. But Granpa said everything you lost which you had loved give you that feeling. He said the only way round it was not to love anything, which was worse because you would feel empty all the time.

Ye see, Little Tree, ain't no way of learning, except by letting ye do. Iff'n I had stopped ye from buying the calf, ye'd have always thought ye'd ought to had it. Iff'n I'd told ye to buy it, ye'd blame me fer the calf dying. Ye'll have to learn as ye go.

Granma and Granpa wanted me to know of the past, for "If ye don't know the past, then ye will not have a future. If ye don't know where your people have been, then ye won't know where your people are going.

Granma's name was Bonnie Bee. I knew that when I heard him late at night say, 'I kin ye, Bonnie Bee,' he was saying, 'I love ye,' for the feeling was in the words.

It is The Way," he said softly. "Take only what ye need. When ye take the deer, do not take the best. Take the smaller and the slower and then the deer will grow stronger and always give you meat. Pa-koh, the panther, knows and so must ye." And

The man in the corner hollered, Tell it all!

The blue jay playing around the cabin means you are going to have plenty of good times and fun. The blue jay is a clown and bounces on the ends of branches and turns flips and teases other birds.

They now have sensed him coming The forest and the wood-wind Father mountain makes him welcome with his song. They have no fear of Little Tree They know his heart is kindness And they sing, 'Little tree is not alone.' Even

Granpa said he seen that and so he knowed. Granpa said ye had to understand. But most people didn't want to-it was too much trouble-so they used words to cover their own laziness and called other folks shiftless.

The Indian never fishes or hunts for sport, only for food. Granpa said it was the silliest damn thing in the world to go around killing something for sport. He said the whole thing, more than likely, was thought up by politicians between wars when they wasn't gittin' people killed so they could keep their hand in on killing. Granpa said that idjits taken it up without a lick of thinking at it, but if you could check it out—politicians started it. Which is likely. We

Fall is nature's grace time; giving you a chance to put things in order, for the dying. And so, when you put things in order, you sort out all you must do … and all you have not done. It is a time for remembering … and regretting, and wishing you had done some things you have not done … and said some things you had not said. I

Seemed like you could stretch out your arms on either side and touch the mountains. Straight up they went, dark and feathered with treetops, and left a thin slice of stars above us. Way off, a mourning dove called, long and throaty, and the mountains picked it up and echoed the sound over and over, carrying it farther and farther away until you wondered how many mountains and hollows that call would travel--and it died away, so far, it was more like a memory than a sound.

Kad nai?eš na nešto što je dobro", rekla je baka Malom Drvetu, "prvo što trebaš napraviti je potražiti nekoga s kim to možeš podijeliti; na taj se na?in dobro širi do najudaljenijih kutaka svijeta. Što je dobro." I imala je pravo.

I felt total bad about it, and empty. Granpa said he knew how I felt, for he was feeling the same way. But Granpa said everything you lost which you had loved give you that feeling. He said the only way round it was not to love anything, which was worse because you would feel empty all the time. Granpa

Take only what you need, not what you want.