"The more clarity you have, the more powerful your goals are."

“I wonder now what Ernest Hemingways dictionary looked like, since he got along so well with dinky words that anybody can spell and truly understand.”

“Sometimes a rural life - without agricultural culture, community, or land - it means that you're a very long drive from everything. It's a big cultural isolation in terms of any kind of schooling where you could get exposed to things that might push the positive buttons. The geography of where people find themselves situated, both in metropolises and in the heartland, really starts to matter.”

Source : "Debra Granik on "poverty porn," self-worth, and her new film, Stray Dog". Interview with Sam Fragoso, www.avclub.com. July 11, 2015.

“Dr. Barney stared at me, his lips puckered. What was he so serious about? Who hasn’t thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it?”

“There are a lot of smart people being really thoughtful and writing really interesting things, but that isn't what I want to do. It's never felt like what I've been called to do. And I have to risk sounding really arrogant when I say that because I've gone to Ivy League schools and been privileged in all these ways in the world of ideas, but I'm not as smart as you think. I'm not really depending on what I learned in college to write my books. Those were just parts of my life experience.”

“I have never read it. You should not waste your time.”

“Nothing really worth having is easy to get. The hard-fought battles, the goals won with sacrifice, are the ones that matter.”

“Out of 6 billion humans, the troublemakers are just a handful.”

“I don't want to collect Indian art, though pots and beadwork and blankets made by Indians remain the most beautiful art objects in the American West, in my opinion.”

Source : Ian Frazier (2000). “On the Rez”, p.4, Macmillan