“Why, my client wondered, would a guy like me make his living like this? Well, you'd think the three hundred dollars he paid just to watch me take a shower would have given him a clue.”

“The streetlight outside my house shines on tonight and I'm watching it like it could give me a vision. James ain't talked ever and he looks at that streetlight like it was a word and maybe like it was a verb. James wanted to streetlight me and make me bright and beautiful so all the moths and bats would circle me like I was the center of the world an held secrets.”

“Men are like snack foods. The ones you want are never good for you.”

“So Lightning says to Mud,“What would happen if I struck your blood?”And Mud says, “Brother, It would hurt, And make me the motherOf every living thing.But, Fire Boy, you ain’t lifting my grass skirtUntil you burn me a ring.”

“But none of them laughed as hard about my beautiful brain as I knew my father would have. I miss him, the drunk bastard. I would always feel closest to the man who had most disappointed me.”

“I got in a fight with my girlfriend," I said. "I was just driving around, blowing off steam, you know?"Well, you should be more careful where you drive," the officer said. "You're making people nervous. You don't fit the profile of the neighborhood."I wanted to tell him that I didn't fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble.”

“I know only, like, five Indians in our whole tribe who have never drunk alcohol. And my grandmother was one of them. "Drinking would shut down my seeing and my hearing and my feeling," she used to say. "Why would I want to be in the world if I couldn't touch the world with all of my senses intact?" (158)”