“It galls me, when I catch a stray remark from the master, or between the older English pupils, to the effect that the Indians are uncommonly fortunate to be here.”

“We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.”

“Wow," I remarked to an older man whohad just turned away from a group. "That'swhat I call a birthday cake. You thinksomeone's going to jump out of that thing?""Hope not," he said in a gravelly voice."They might catch fire from all the candles.”

“The only way to gall and fret effectively is for yourself to be a good and honest man.”

“Yet had Fleming not possessed immense knowledge and an unremitting gift of observation he might not have observed the effect of the hyssop mould. 'Fortune,' remarked Pasteur, 'favors the prepared mind.”

“It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention.”