Quotes from Louise Erdrich

White double bloodroot and blue scilla covered yards on my path to the store. The leather knuckles of milkweed were pushing from the earth. Dark hemlocks and pine were tipped with tiny tender green needles. People wandered about like toddlers, bending over to look at last year's dried grass. They watched the sky and examined the tags of newly planted city trees. And the air—it was a clean cold food.

I had to get out of my surroundings the way I used to in prison. There, I had learned to read with a force that resembled insanity. Once free, I found that I could not read just any book. It had gotten so I could see through books--the little ruses, the hooks, the setup in the beginning, the looming weight of a tragic ending, the way at the last page the author could whisk out the carpet of sorrow and restore a favorite character.

My dying tree reached toward the sky from its back down on earth. Its branches were like beseeching arms. It takes a while for life to leave green wood. I felt the helplessness, the lack of agency, the frustration of the tree. Severed from its roots, unable to taste the starlight.

You undergo your own incarceration. You may witness your demise piece by piece. You may be one kind of fool who never gets enough or another who gets too much.

The tea was made from aromatic cedar fronds and melted snow. It was her favorite kind of tea. There was something about the water that was swirled through the heavens, frozen, scooped up, and boiled with cedar.

A MAN FINDS happiness so fleetingly, like the petals melting off a prairie rose. Even as you touch that feeling it dries up, leaving only the dust of that emotion, a powder of hope.

still kept. Rose and the girls were hooting

That old buffalo woman gave Nanapush her views. She told him that he had survived by doing the opposite of all the others. Where they abandoned, he saved. Where they were cruel, he was kind. Where they betrayed, he was faithful. Nanapush then decided that in all things he would be unpredictable. As he had completely lost trust in authority, he decided to stay away from others and to think for himself, even to do the most ridiculous things that occurred to him.

Any power she owned lay in her feigned indifference.

Albertine was one of those who took on too much in order to remain perpetually dissatisfied with herself.

Minute by minute, a day passed.

Why couldn't he bear down and concentrate? Because he was scared, that's why.

Words The word used for ejaculation—baashkizige—is also used for shooting off a gun. The word used for condom—biinda'oojigan—means gun case. Millie entered these words into her notebook. Fascinating.

As they plodded along, the golden radiance intensified until it seemed to emanate from every feature of the land.

Thomas had tried to educate himself, mainly by reading everything he could find. When he needed to calm his mind, he opened a book. Any book. He had never failed to feel refreshed, even if the book was no good.

The world was tender with significance. "Onizhishin, so beautiful," Patrice murmured.

He was empty of response. There was a hollow feeling

I heard your looking for your sis. My cousin lives in the Cities. She saw her and wrote to you—with her L hand because she broke her R finger pointing out my faults. That's Genevieve for you. Watch the mail.

They dance together in a line, murmuring in swift, low voices, smiling carefully as they are too proud to give away their beauty. They are light steppers with a gravity of sure grace.

And Patrice thought another thing her mother said was definitely true—you never really knew a man until you told him you didn't love him.

In Erling Nicolai Rolfsrud's compendium of memorable women and men from North Dakota, "Mustache" Maude Black, for that was the name of my grandparents' benefactress, is described as not un-womanly, though she dressed mannishly, smoked, drank, was a crack shot and a hard-assed camp boss. These

To Delphine, the hesitation of March was cheering. March was all expectation, a gathering of power. Still cold but marginally warmer every day - a hopeful time of the year

Government is more like sex than people think. When you are having good sex, you don't appreciate it enough. When you are having bad sex, it is all you can think about.

if the northern lights had anything to do with it they would have chosen an electrostatic copier, as the lights were themselves electrical impulses born of powerful conflicting charges between the sun and the magnetic poles of the earth.