For the storyteller, for the arrowmaker, language does indeed represent the only chance for survival.

I wonder if, in the dark night of the sea, the octopus dreams of me.

In the beginning was the word, and it was spoken.

Anything is bearable if you can make a story out of it.

A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.

If you believe in the power of words, you can bring about physical changes in the universe.

Words were medicine; they were magic and invisible. They came from nothing into sound and meaning. They were beyond price; they could neither be bought nor sold.

I sometimes think the contemporary white American is more culturally deprived than the Indian.

Indians are marvelous storytellers. In some ways, that oral tradition is stronger than the written tradition.

It's a landscape that has to be seen to be believed. And, as I say on occasion, it may have to be believed in order to be seen.

The highest human purpose is always to reinvent and celebrate the sacred.

Any goal, no matter what size, can be achieved if it is tackled with courage, initiative, perseverance, and integrity.

What gets recognized gets repeated

I'm not going to jump out of airplanes or anything like someone else I know.

Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't.

A strong man can handle a strong woman. A weak man will say she has an attitude problem

Never. Till my last breath I will work. To retire there is only one place-the cremation ground.

When studio art started being seen as important, I joined Colab, and then I became very involved.

I'm sure there's a right way and there's a wrong way. The bottom line is you have to do what you think is right.

I think there's nothing worse than inertia. You can inert and study your navel and gradually you'll fall off the chair. I think the key is to keep flying.

When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature.