Quotes About Understanding

Kindness I can manage, even when affection I can't.

Recent history takes a while to set. People really don't know what just happened. They only figure it out later.

One listened and one remembered. I listened as best I could, but there were no hooks in my head to hang much of it on.

You have to notice people to be that sure about them.

She was in pain and I loved her, sort of loved her, I guess, so I kind of had to love her pain, too.

Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.

Like officer Dave.He's never said much about his life, but I can tell he's scarred. And he knows I'm scarred too. The wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other.

In this world, we must love the liars or go unloved

Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions.

And he only talks about his dreams with me. And I only talk about my dreams with him.

James tells the crowd that the river is just a few yards from where we stand is all we ever need to believe in. One white woman asks how old James is and I tell her he's seven and she tells me that he's so smart for an Indian boy. James hears this and tells the white woman that she's pretty smart for an old white woman.

Your mother is a better man than me. Mothers are almost always better men than men are.

She shook my hand, loosely, like Indians do, using only her fingers. Not like those tight grips that white people use to prove something. She touched my hand like she was glad to see me, not like she wanted to break bones.

My grandmother's last act on earth was a call for forgiveness, love, and tolerance.

All of these white kids and teachers, who were so suspicious of me when I first arrived, had learned to care about me. Maybe some of them even loved me. And I'd been so suspicious of them. And now I care about a lot of them. And loved a few of them.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the sign of a superior mind "is the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time.

That word means 'earth-dream'. And, depending on how you use it, it means we, the people, are dreaming the earth into being. And it also means the earth is dreaming us, the people, into being. We are dreaming each other. And making each other real. And it means other things, too, that I don't understand. That I might never understand. But I am going to keep learning.

They wanted to help me with my pain.

Maria was staring at me like I was wearing purple socks. 'Wow," she said. "That's exactly what music is.' And then she started crying again. But this time, she wept quietly. 'You understand," she said. 'You really understand.

Like a good Indian, he knew when to talk and when to remain silent. Like a good Indian, he knew there was never a good time to talk.

And anger is never added to anger. It multiplies.

We didn't talk. Didn't need to talk.

I mean, why are you trying so hard to impress me? I'm really sorry your mother died, but it doesn't mean much to me...

I am always amused by those couples, lovers and spouses who perform and ask others to perform musical chairs whenever they, by random seat selection, are separated from each other. 'Can you switch seats with me, a woman asks me, 'so I can sit with my husband?' 'How dare you? How dare you ask me to change my life for you? How imperial. How colonial.' But, ah, here is the strange truth. Whenever I'm asked to trade seats for somebody else's love, I do. I always do.