Best Native American Literature Quotes

“Four kids in T-shirts and jeans jam on a powwow stage. They’re grinning, bouncing, fully engaged with their music, each other, and the relaxed crowd. I’m splitting fry bread with a cousin as we cheer on the band, and across the tent, a young girl reading a paperback catches my eye. In that moment, I wish for more characters like those kids in the pages of children’s books. This anthology is a fulfillment of that wish.”

Middle Grade Middle School Anthology Childrens Books Indigenous Peoples Childrens Literature Native American Literature Indigenous Literature Powwow

Book:Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids

Source: Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids

“I walk out into the open, never dreaming of what I'd see. I sat on a tree and saw Mother Nature crying to me. When I looked around, I knew the pain She felt. All the trees lifeless on the ground. She cries and asks me, 'How?' She continued, 'It's gone. I had to say goodbye to my grass, trees, and little animals, too. This was once beautiful and I was happy, but now I feel like you.' (Larissa Ross, student)”

Children S Poetry Native American Literature

Book:Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

Source: Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

“Indian misery is when somebody takes your land. Indian misery is when somebody kills your friends. Indian misery is when your people turn against you. Indian misery is being slaves to people. Indian misery is being locked up in jail. Indian misery is people killing your food for money. Indian misery is fighting. Indian misery is no peace. Indian misery is when you get killed. Indian misery is if you lose the fight. (Andrew Herman, student)”

Children S Poetry Native American Literature

Book:Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

Source: Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

“What the roses are saying cannot be heard through voice but through beauty as you watch the rain slip from their petals and hang from their edges. (Dena Colhoff, student)”

Children S Poetry Native American Literature

Book:Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

Source: Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

“Misery is when you always seem to be getting dressed in black to go to a funeral. Misery is when you get there and realize that the person who is dead is another close friend. Misery is when you look around and all your friends are crying. Misery is when you hear them say they'll try to stop and stay away from this stuff. Misery is when the next day you see them stocking up in White Clay for a party soon to come. Misery is whenyou hear the sirens, and you have to sit and wonder whose funeral you'll be attending for the next few days. Misery is when you realize they'll never stop, and you'll always be choosing black clothing for the next day. (Kayla Matthews, student)”

Children S Poetry Native American Literature

Book:Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

Source: Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

“Life on Life on the reservation Life on the reservation is dirty Life on the reservation is dirty, filthy Life on the reservation is dirty, filthy dogs. (Dena Colhoff, student)”

Children S Poetry Native American Literature

Book:Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

Source: Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School

“We are only atoms trailing the carved skull wrapped inside a sunbeam.”

Atoms Native American Native American Wisdom Native American Literature Skull Native American Quotes Native American Poetry Native American Writer

Author:Sherwin Bitsui

“This is how our people face death. We walk to the tundra, underneath the sky, and we face death by ourselves. Even the Elders, old, feeble, and minds like children, somehow, they know when the time is near. I suppose I’ll know when it is time.”

Death Historical Fiction Death And Dying Indigenous Alaska Arctic Native American Literature Inupiaq Alaska Native Literature

Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor

Source: Sivulliq: Ancestor

“My husband trudged up the ridge, stumbling, but determined. My children and I watched him until he disappeared over the ridge, out of view, vanishing into the abyss. It wasn’t an extraordinary day, not foggy, not stormy, or a bright day. It was grey and cloudy when a good man and a good father walked up to face death like our people have done for a millennia.”

Death Historical Fiction Death And Dying Indigenous Alaska Arctic Native American Literature Inupiaq Alaska Native Literature

Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor

Source: Sivulliq: Ancestor

“Below deck is suffocating, smelling of sweaty, spermy, unwashed armpits, unwashed groins, moldy wood, bilge water, and the green smell of algae, all congealed in thick streams. I’ve learned to sleep by breathing out of my mouth. On deck, we escape the bed bugs biting away at our skin, clicking cockroaches hiding in the shadows, and the rats gnawing away at every cask. I look forward to the cold sea air.”

Historical Fiction Indigenous Alaska Arctic Native American Literature Inupiaq Alaska Native Literature Yankee Whalers New Bedford

Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor

Source: Sivulliq: Ancestor

“We’re splicing rope today. Yesterday we cleaned out the trypots, the pots for boiling whale blubber, dry as an old maid in heat, Remigio says.”

Historical Fiction Indigenous Alaska Arctic Native American Literature Inupiaq Alaska Native Literature Yankee Whalers Commercial Whaling

Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor

Source: Sivulliq: Ancestor

“At the Galapagos Islands, the cook wanted fresh wild pigs. He said we needed fresh meat to last until San Francisco. We tried. We heard pigs squealing on the island, running, large leaves moving as they ran underneath the foliage. Merihim said we’ve no time. So, we killed two large turtles, the biggest I’ve ever seen. The cook dried and cured the meat into jerky.”

Historical Fiction San Francisco Indigenous Alaska Arctic Native American Literature Inupiaq Alaska Native Literature Galápagos Islands

Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor

Source: Sivulliq: Ancestor

“Gerald and I saw the Azore Islands, Talcahuano, Tumbez, San Francisco, and Nome from afar while the captain and officers rowed to shore for fresh food and fresh whalers. Even at Nome, not two days ago, Gerald and I watched the Alaskan town from the ship. We saw Talcahuano at night, the town alive with lights and torches. We heard music across the water. People celebrated an event on shore. We thought it might be a wedding. We imagined walking the clay, brick roads, ordering crabs and clams near the sea, sampling the local exotic fruits and plants growing in their vibrant colors and prickly skins, and of course, seducing the dark- skinned indigenous women emanating macadamia oil, musk, and leafy air. Merihim laughed at our children’s eyes and said to act like men, not like guttersnipes at a bakery window.”

Indigenous Alaska Arctic Native American Literature Inupiaq Nome Alaska Native Literature Azore Islands Guttersnipes

Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor

Source: Sivulliq: Ancestor

“Being Indian has never been about returning to the land. The land is everywhere or nowhere.”

Indian Literary Fiction Native American Literature

Book:There There

Source: There There

“Pain expanded my heart.”

Abuse Survivors Native American Literature Native Memoir

Book:Heart Berries

Source: Heart Berries

“I prayed. He was going home, and I wanted to pray. Look out for me, I said; look out each day and listen for me. And we were going together on horses to the hills. We were going to ride out in the first light to the hills. We were going to see how it was, and always was, how the sun came up with a little wind and the light ran out upon the land. We were going to get drunk, I said. We were going to be all alone, and we were going to get drunk and sing. We were going to sing about the way it always was. And it was going to be right and beautiful. It was going to be the last time. And he was going home.”

Promise Tragedy Native American Literature

Book:House Made of Dawn

Source: House Made of Dawn

“It was a good day to die, but nobody did.”

Native American Literature

Book:The Bird is Gone: A Manifesto

Source: The Bird is Gone: A Manifesto

“. . . what I told Malory happened next is that when he looked over at her then it was like he'd been waiting a hundred years to see her, and this crazy ass Ledfeather girl all the way from Standing Rock, she looked off after the elk and then back at Doby through her hair, like she'd maybe been waiting for him too, but was scared a little, wanted to be sure, so Doby opened his mouth and said her name across the backseat of Junior's cab, Claire, like a flower opening in his mouth, and she held her lips together and nodded thank you to him, yes, thank you, and then swallowed what was in her throat and just let the sides of their hands touch together again some like it didn't really matter. But it did.”

Love Hope Destiny Soulmates Time Travel Twist Native American Literature

Book:Ledfeather

Source: Ledfeather

“We're boys. That's what we're supposed to do.”

Mystery Lgbtq Psychological Fiction Native American Literature

Book:This Town Sleeps: A Novel

Source: This Town Sleeps: A Novel

“At school, my science teacher talked about the ozone layer even as aerosol hairspray kept clouding the bathroom stalls. I tried to tell Mom about climate change, but she acted like I was gullible. If I was mad about losing our land, I was even angrier about what they'd done to it. While I still didn't know about the massacres, I knew enough to feel robbed. Manhatten was purchased with beads. Valuable furs had been traded for whiskey. White people used empty promises as tender, and in exchange, we Indians got blood quantum, our lineages tracked like thoroughbreds or dogs, destined to be turned into glue.”

American History Truth Telling Native American Literature Native American History

Book:Whiskey Tender: A Memoir

Source: Whiskey Tender: A Memoir