Paula Gunn Allen Quotes

America has amnesia ... Certainly, there is a passion for memory loss in American thought ... Americans may be the world champion forgetters.

For the American Indian, the ability of all creatures to share in the process of ongoing creation makes all things sacred.

In America, law substitutes for custom.

Hoop Dancer is a rendering of my understanding of the process by which one enters into timelessness
that place where one is whole.

Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars, molecules, microscopic entities all come in communities. The singular cannot in reality exist.

As long as we avoid the creative, we are condemned to reaction.

I am not especially defined by my sex life, nor complete without it.

Idealization of a group is a natural consequence of separation from the group; in other words, it is a by-product of alienation.

We are the land. To the best of my understanding, that is the fundamental idea that permeates American Indian life ...

An odd thing occurs in the minds of Americans when Indian civilization in mentioned: little or nothing.

True shamans live in a world that is alive with what is to rationalist sight unseen, a world pulsing with intelligence.

The shadows cannot speak.

Indians think it is important to remember, while Americans believe it is important to forget.