Joseph Bruchac Quotes

Librarians ... have been my lifelong friends, guides and heroes.

Never think that war is a good thing, grandchildren. Though it may be necessary at times to defend our people, war is a sickness that must be cured. War is a time out of balance. When it is truly over, we must work to restore peace and sacred harmony once again.

I am Squanto. I am known to all those who gather here: English, Pokanoket, Nemasket, even a few of my own surviving Patuxets. I speak to you as a pniese, a man of honor. I will never leave this land. I give thanks for all of our people to the Creator of All Things.

One of the things I've been taught by Native American elders is the importance of patience, of waiting to do things when the time is right.

Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon.

My grandfather, Jesse Bowman, was of Abenaki Indian descent. He could barely read and write, but I remember him as one of the kindest people I ever knew. I followed him everywhere. He showed me how to walk quietly in the woods and how to fish.

I did not walk every step of the Trail of Tears at one time. Instead, over the last 20 years, I have walked various segments of it in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

We need to walk to know sacred places, those around us and those within. We need to walk to remember the songs.

I think I always knew I would be a writer some day, but it wasn't until I was grown and had children of my own that I turned to telling Native American stories.

She's always suggesting books like a literary marriage broker, wedding readers to the titles just right for them.

The Cherokees tried to do everything within the law and wished only to live in peace on their own lands. Yet they were cheated out of their birthright and treated as if they were less than human.

I often find myself unsatisfied with books 'about' Indians because they are written from the viewpoint of non-Indians.

At a time when Europeans already had a long history of violent contact with Native people, Lewis and Clark made most of their journey in peace.

My story is both strange and true. I was born in the year the English call 1590. My family were leaders of the Patuxet people and I, too, was raised to lead. But in 1614 I was taken to Spain against my will. Now it is 1621 and I am again in my homeland. My name is Squanto. I would like to tell you my tale.

It is amazing to me that so little is still known about the Trail of Tears or the lives of the Cherokees themselves.

So it was that five days later, on the 22nd of March, I walked with Samoset back into my own village. Once Patuxet, now it was Plymouth. I looked around me. Though much was changed, I knew that I at last had returned to the land of my home.

To begin with, I want to tell a good story, a story that people will listen to and that they'll think this is true, even if it is a story that might be defined as - as myth or legend or even fanciful.

The female of species is deadlier than the male.

The Trail of Tears has a great deal of meaning for every person of American Indian ancestry, whether they are Cherokee or not. For me, it has always stood for what is best and worst about the history of the United States.

Another of the hard things about being in a war, grandchildren, is that although there are times of quiet when the fighting has stopped, you know you will soon be fighting again. Those quiet times give you the chance to think about what has happened. Some of it you would rather not think about, as you remember the pain and the sorrow. You also have time to worry about what will happen when you go into battle again.

So it is that both this breathing moment and what is called "the future"are always linked with what is called "the past." So it is that dreams become reality, that memories move back and forth between dreams, and that our stories are a swaying, dancing bridge between them.

As long as we can remember them, our families will always be with us.

The best teachers have shown me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly - we only think it does.

The special skills necessary for being a storyteller are really very simple. I actually talked about them in a book of mine called 'Tell Me a Tale.' Those basic skills are to listen, to observe, to remember, and to share.

I'm inspired by many different things. Often, I'm inspired by experiences I've had, books I've read, people I've met, stories I've heard.

Over the years, I found myself traveling parts of the Lewis and Clark Trail, putting my hands in the river where they set out from St. Louis, viewing the Great Falls of Montana, standing by the same Pacific Ocean they saw with such joy.

Like the meaning of my name, questions follow me wherever I go.

There are many people who could claim and learn from their Indian ancestry, but because of the fear their parents and grandparents knew, because of past and present prejudice against Indian people, that part of their heritage is clouded or denied.

Author's Note

Then there is the land itself. Our Native people have always believed that the land talks to us when we listen. I have stood on the same ground where Squanto walked three centuries ago, feeling the sea breeze in my face and smelling the smoke from cooking fires, where the same foods he would have eaten were being cooked in the traditional way. As I stood there, I, too, heard the whisper of the earth, a song on the wind reminding me that those ancient voices will never be gone.

Every year, I travel extensively in the autumn and the spring. I set most of the winter and summer aside for my family and my own tribal relatives. But during that traveling time, I often find myself visiting other native communities around the continent - perhaps a dozen or more each year.

If I've learned one thing in the last few days it is that every question does not need to be answered. A story is not true just because of it's literal veracity. It is the message, what it teaches, that counts.

When the Lakota leader Sitting Bull was asked by a white reporter why his people loved and respected him, Sitting Bull replied by asking if it was not true that among white people a man is respected because he has many horses, many houses? When the reporter replied that was indeed true, Sitting Bull then said that his people respected him because he kept nothing for himself.