Leslie Marmon Silko Quotes

As a Cherokee, I can attest to the fact that Native Americans have been on the losing side of history. Our rights have been infringed upon, our treaties have been broken, our culture has been stolen, and our tribes have been decimated at the hands of our own United States government.

In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures.

Looking at the purpose of our government toward the Indians, we find that after subjugating them it has been our policy to collect the different tribes on reservations and support them at the expense of our people.

The case of the Seminoles constitutes at present the only exception to the successful efforts of the Government to remove the Indians to the homes assigned them west of the Mississippi.

People need to free their minds of racial prejudice and believe in equality for all and freedom regardless of race. It would be a good thing if all people were treated equally and justly and not be discriminated against because of race or religion or anything that makes them different from others.

We have people who believe they are scientifically literate but, in fact, are not.

"I'm going to put out something that I believe in, or I'm not going to do it." I'm really scared of putting out a product that people will say, "Oh, that's not as good as the other thing."

It doesn't matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true... You are what the media define you to be. [Greenpeace] became a myth and a myth-generating machine.

There are those who believe justice and dignity are reserved only for some people. Young men have died in police custody, and the growing heel of poverty has worn down harder on children of color...We must fight back.

We [with Andrew Ridgeley] didn't expect people to take it seriously. But naturally they did, and they thought we were a couple of wankers.

The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!

I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.

When people see you do alright, then you start winning their hearts. It's not going to come easy, though. It doesn't matter how many people you do right, you're still going to be hated by so many others. You can't live your life trying to make everybody happy.

We cannot tell some people what it is believe, partly because they are too stupid to understand, partly because we are too proudly vague to explain.

Criticism is hard for me but people find hard to believe because they think I'm very tough, very strident, that I tell everybody where to get off, and how. But I've actually got a really thin skin. I don't know. It's quite pathetic. So, yeah, it's hard for me to take criticism. But I also kind of have this sense of humor on overdrive, so I don't take any of it seriously. So that sort of saves me, the fact that I think it's just all kind of funny.

You must be careful with kindness. It's usually mistaken for weakness by stupid people.

If people are rude, that may be the end of the conversation, and maybe we won't have a subsequent conversation. But I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt and believing the best about the person.

If you believe in free will, why don't you have confidence in people to use it? Why do you want a government, or whoever, regulating them, if you believe in it?

I just happen to believe that people are not stupid.

I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush.

But I'm very libertarian in the sense that I believe in small government and, as a general rule, I don't believe in imposing values upon people.

The left wants you to believe that true morality is defined by how much money you give the government, how much money you pay the government, how much money the government gets from you, because only the government does good stuff, only the government does good works, only the government cares about people. It's bogus.

It is very hard now to shock people into thinking about government regulation and the extent of government involvement in life.

America has allowed white people to kill and brutalize those they don't like.

My Facebook page confuses a lot of people. I'll post a Beyoncé Knowles song, and, people are like, "What are you doing?! This is bullshit," and I'm like, "No! Beyoncé is the Linda Ronstadt of our day, you don't understand!"