“Rule Number One for working for a white lady, Minny: it is nobody’s business. You keep your nose out of your White Lady’s problems, you don’t go crying to her with yours—you can’t pay the light bill? Your feet are too sore? Remember one thing: white people are not your friends. They don’t want to hear about it. And when Miss White Lady catches her man with the lady next door, you keep out of it, you hear me?”

“But that’s the thing about dead people: they can’t warn you to keep your nose out of things that are going to put your ass in danger.”

“If you don’t find the right set of eyes to see through your bull, you will always be surrounded by friends that will tell you white lies because they like your company and don’t want to ruin the evening.”

“Well you are fresh Your face is fabulous Don’t forget you’re one of a kind When nobody’s checking the deeds you’ve done And nobody’s hearing your cries You make all the fashion statements Just by dressing up your mind ((Beauty in Ugly))”

“Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.”

“One of our people in the Native community said the difference between white people and Indians is that Indian people know they are oppressed but don’t feel powerless. White people don’t feel oppressed, but feel powerless. Deconstruct that disempowerment. Part of the mythology that they’ve been teaching you is that you have no power. Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth.”