Kent Nerburn

“Love has its own time, its own season, and its own reasons from coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you.”

“People should think of their words like seeds. They should plant them, then let them grow in silence. Our old people taught us that the earth is always speaking to us, but that we have to be silent to hear her.”

“Remember that you don't choose love; love chooses you. All you really can do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing then reach out and give it away.”

“Until you have a son of your own... you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son.”

“It is much easier to become a father than to be one.”

“When we try to understand another, we reveal ourselves, and in revealing ourselves we are able to be understood. Our heart declares itself to another heart, and that which is common between us becomes the bridge over which understanding crosses.”

“Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.”

“Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun.”

“Grover spit expertly between his teeth. "You know, Nerburn," he said, "you're like those treaty negotiators we used to have to deal with. Always in a hurry. Sometimes there are preliminaries." "There are preliminaries and there are evasions," I said. "Look out there." I swept my hand across the blazing, parched horizon. "We've got to get moving if we want to get up there before it's a hundred and ten degrees." "Just relax. He's just doing it the Lakota way, by laying out the history. That's how we remember our history, by telling our story," "But does every story have to start with Columbus?" "Everything starts with Columbus. At least everything to do with white people." "But what's with the French fries?" "He likes to get rid of the salt." "No, the piles. First he insists on getting exactly twenty-eight, then he divides them into piles. It doesn't make any sense." A small smile crept across Grover's face. "How many piles?" he asked. "Four." He spit one more time onto the ground. It made a small puff of explosion in the dust. "Mmm. Twenty-eight French fries. Four piles of seven." He made a great charade of counting on his fingers. "Let's see. Four seasons. Four directions. Four stages of life. "Seven council fires. Seven sacred rituals. The moon lives for twenty-eight days. Yeah, I guess that doesn't make any sense." "That's crazy," I said. "What is it? Some kind of Lakota French fry rosary?”

“Our young people, raised under the old rules of courtesy, never indulged in the present habit of talking incessantly and all at the same time. To do so would have been not only impolite, but foolish; for poise, so much admired as a social grace, could not be accompanied by restlessness. Pauses were acknowledged gracefully and did not cause lack of ease or embarrassment.”

“We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware – beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.”

“They say that perhaps it is not by love, but by blood, that land is bought. They say that perhaps my people had to die to nourish this earth with their truth. Your people did not have ears to hear. Perhaps we had to return to the earth, so that we could grow within your hearts. Perhaps we have come back and will fill the hills and valleys with our song. Who is to know?”

“Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union. Loneliness is small, solitude is large. Loneliness closes in around you; solitude expands toward the infinite. Loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal conversation that nobody answers; solitude has its roots in the great silence of eternity.”

“Do not fall prey to the false belief that mastery and domination are synonymous with manliness.”