Leonard Peltier Quotes

I think crime fiction is a great way to talk about social issues, whether 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'The Lovely Bones;' violence is a way to open up that information you want to get out to the reader.

My country is being crucified…

On Thanksgiving Night, 1942, when I was fifteen years old, white racists burned our house to the ground.

In the basement of 33 Himmel Street, Max Vandenburg could feel the fists of an entire nation. One by one they climbed into the ring to beat him down. They made him bleed. They let him suffer. Millions of them - until one last time, when he gathered himself to his feet.

I had a very distant relationship with my father. It was always just me and my mother. It was a shattering blow when she died. I was 16.

My mom and dad passed away from cancer. Within nine months, I lost both of my folks. Immediately after that, I had a horrible betrayal where my brother, who worked for me, stole a lot of my money. He's in jail now.

These days, my subjects are murder and mayhem and other terrible things that happen to people - things that are even worse than cutting yourself shaving. And these are not the sorts of things you feel the need to experience before you write about them.

Violence ravaged my life. I was a victim of hatred, and I have dedicated my life to reversing that hatred.

I am deeply saddened to hear that the man who murdered my brother, Michael Ensley, has been charged with murder again. I grieve for every family who has been victimized by this heinous individual. My prayers and love go out to the family of Demetra Doyle Heard during this trying time.

So war is an extremely sad business, because the majority of people don't want to be in it.

War isn't just about bravery and courage and jingoism and patriotism. It's also fundamentally about grief. And the people that go and do the fighting and the dying are never the people who actually benefit from the fighting and the dying.

The candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who 'disappeared'. That's what the candle is for.

When I was very young, I remember my mother telling me about a friend of hers in Germany, a pianist who played a symphony that wasn't permitted, and the Germans came up on stage and broke every finger on her hands. I grew up with stories of Nazis breaking the fingers of Jews.

When men talk about war, the stories and terminology vary - it's this battle, these weapons, this terrain. But no matter where you go in the world, women use the same language to speak of war. They speak of fire, they speak of death, and they speak of starvation.

Racism and injustice and violence sweep our world, bringing a tragic harvest of heartache and death.

Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity, do not easily resume life.

In 1996, I was the head coach at Brigham Young University. And I got a call from my dad, and he said my brother had been murdered by du Pont. And it just infuriated me to just no end. And I think I destroyed everything in my office.

Terrorism is not new to black people.

Behind every crime is a story of sadness.

Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.

We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.

When my son was murdered, people asked me how I felt about God and what had happened to my son. I said, 'No, you can't go there. You have to understand that there is a devil, and he works 24/7. Whoever murdered our son was with the devil.'

When my mother died, I fell apart. My father wanted to control me. As a consequence, I ran away to America.

I lost my daughter at 21. I had to give her up because I was broke, no place to take her, no money to take her. That was very traumatic.

Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.