Quotes About Challenges

They make a mess," Jared told her. "Tulip foliage dies and turns an ugly yellow. Pansies aren't hardy. The bloom stalks on lavender drop their buds. Violets seed themselves." His tone of voice made it clear that seeding oneself was a perversion.

I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.

Gordie, the white boy genius, gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians, and he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the frikkin' booze.

Sometimes you don't have enough money to hire a real science teacher. Sometimes you have an old real science teacher who retires or quits and leaves you without a replacement. And if you don't have a real science teacher, then you pick one of the other teachers and make him the science teacher. And that's why small-town kids sometimes don't know the truth about petrified wood.

There's never enough time to change your life. You don't get to change your life, period.

He was the loser Indian father of a loser Indian son living in a world built for winners.

A man doesn't grow up black in the USA without knowing a lot of crazy black folks, without being born to and giving birth to the breakable and broken.

Indian boys weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either.

Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No poverty only teaches you how to be poor.

It's hard to be optimistic on the reservation. When a glass sits on a table here, people don't wonder if it's half filled or half empty. They just hope it's good beer. Still, Indians have a way of surviving. But it's almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language and land rights. It's the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn't take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins.

Junior based all of his decisions on his dreams and visions, which created a lot of problems.

When Indian women begin the search for an Indian man, they carry a huge list of qualifications. He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. He has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice. But as the screwed-up Indian men stagger through their lives, Indian women are forced to amend their list of qualifications. Eventually, Indian men need only to have their own teeth to get snagged.

I am still looking for a job. They keep telling me I don't have enough experience. But how can I get enough experience if they don't give me a chance to get experience? Oh, well.

I'm not an Indian warrior chief. I'm not some demure little Indian woman healer talking spider this, spider that, am I? I'm not babbling about the four directions. Or the two-legged, four-legged, and winged. I'm talking like a twentieth-century Indian woman. Hell, a twenty-first century Indian, and you can't handle it, you wimp.

8. Marriage is filled with, among other things, laundry and unanswered questions.

Ironically no one ever wants to hear what I have to say about anything. They usually argue with me to the point I want to put them through a wall. Hopefully you won't be so dense. (Acheron)

Yeah, right. Life is a soul-sucking test that you either survive or you fail. Personally, I think failure blows, so I intend to survive and laugh my ass off at all the losers. (Nick)

Life's not easy for anyone. Everyone has scars they're afraid to show and we all get slammed headfirst into a proverbial locker from time to time by someone bigger and badder.

I love you, don't I? And the gods know you are definitely not easy to deal with. (Aimee) Thanks, Aim. By the way I still have a tiny bit of confidence left. Please make sure you stomp on it too while you're at it. Gods forbid it should actually grow into something called self-esteem. (Fang)

In the end, life makes victims of us all.

Baby, it's either laugh or cry and crying takes way too much energy. If you can't find humor in the shit life heaps on you, you really will grow miserable. (Syn)

The way to overcome the angry man is with gentleness, the evil man goodness, the miser with generosity, and the liar with truth. (Indian proverb) It sounds good, doesn't it? If only people and life were that effing easy. Trust me, it takes more than a friendly biscuit to tame a hungry lion. And it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Then it's war. (Savitar)

I haven't noticed you being slammed into anyone's locker lately. (Nick) That's because you're not around me all the time. Trust me. Life's not easy for anyone. Everyone has scars they're afraid to show and we all get slammed headfirst into a proverbial locker from time to time by someone bigger and badder. (Caleb)

Where did you learn to ride anyway? Disasters-R-Us? (Tory)