Quotes from Tony Hillerman

country bumps into the Jicarilla Apache

and their families are hungry. They don't have guns. Wouldn't hurt

Leaphorn sat on a slab of sandstone and considered what these tracks told him. It wasn't much. He could guess that the killing hadn't been premeditated — at least not completely. One who plans to carry a body a long distance uphill over rough ground does not wear moccasins if he has any respect for his feet.

Full of mysticism—most of it nonsense and all muddled up—but something in him driving him to know more than a natural man is supposed to know.

This interruption broke the flow of whatever Redd was trying to tell them. And, by Navajo standards, such an interruption was rude. One let a speaker finish, and then waited to make sure he was indeed finished, before one spoke. But then Janet Pete was really Navajo only by blood and birth. She hadn't been raised on the Reservation in the Navajo Way. Had

Happiness was always on her side of the horizon, safely in Dinetah, safely between the Sacred Mountains. She never felt any need to learn what lay beyond them.

But would the man who hunted him still be here? Leaphorn considered this. The man would have known he had flushed his bird. He needed to be a fairly competent tracker to find George's kill site. But once George was running, covering his tracks, he would have to be much better than that. He would have to be as good as Joe Leaphorn — and perhaps better than Leaphorn. As far as Leaphorn knew, there were no better trackers than himself. Certainly no Zuni, or white man.

Captain,' he said. Largo looked up. 'Johnson had trouble with that lost fifty minutes at the airplane. Do you?' 'I don't think so,' Largo said. His expression was totally neutral. 'I know something Johnson doesn't.' He held up the folder. 'I know how slow you work.

this further example of Irma Onesalt in the role of busybody, to use the belagana term for it. His mother would have called her, in Navajo, a "one who tells sheep which weed to eat.

even sure I heard the music. Maybe you

Like all dry-country people, Leaphorn enjoyed rain—that rare, longed for, refreshing blessing that made the desert bloom and life possible.

He's as independent as a hog on ice.

He saw what the origin mythology said of them as a metaphor. Some choose to violate the Way of the People, choosing incest, murder, and material riches over the order and harmony of the Navajo Way. Call them what you like, Chee knew they existed. He knew they were dangerous

And the white guy, I just barely got a look at him. They all sort of look alike anyway. All I notice is freckles and sunburn.

The building was of stone, originally erected, Leaphorn had been told, by a Church of Christ missionary early in McGinnis's tenure as trader and postmaster. It had been abandoned after the preacher's optimism had been eroded by his inability to cause the Dinee to accept the idea that God had a personal and special interest in humans.

O'Malley was still talking. Leaphorn looked at him, wondering about this FBI policy. Where did they find so many O'Malleys? He had a sudden vision of an office in the Department of Justice building in Washington, a clerk sending out draft notices to all the male cheerleaders and drum majors at U.S.C., Brigham Young, Arizona State, and Notre Dame, ordering them to get their hair cut and report for duty. He suppressed a grin.

with the sandstone cliffs of the Manuelito Plateau off to their right, the great emptiness of Black Creek Valley on the left, and clouds lit by the morning sun building over the Painted Cliffs ahead of them.

They get caught up in the Washington competition, where knowledge is power. That gets them obsessed with secrecy.

white with a big round head

The newspapers say that this ripping off the four billion or so of Tribal royalty money has been going on for more than fifty years. And they're quoting the government bean counters. Right? I can't see much hope of me finding anything new.

McKee had concluded years ago that the intricacies of feminine logic were beyond his comprehension.

need for a younger, less sophisticated

You weren't listening. I asked you why you decided to quit." Leaphorn had said nothing for a while. "Just tired." Thatcher had shaken his head. "You're going to miss it." "No, you get older. Or wiser. You realize it doesn't really make any difference.

I went out with some FBI agents and knocked the ball into all eighteen holes. It wasn't hard but once you've done it, I don't know why you'd want to do it again.