The Night Watchman Quotes
"He wrote on and on, hypnotizing himself, until at last he passed out and came awake, drooling on his clenched fist."
"Knowing how much they needed Patrice’s job, it was her mother’s task during the week to sit up behind the door with the ax."
"Sometimes the things her mother did from lifelong repetition looked like magic tricks."
"As long as her shoulders or back didn’t hurt, this hypnotic state of mind could carry her along for an hour and maybe two."
"He poured a measure of black coffee into the steel cover that was also a cup. The warm metal, the gentle ridges, the rounded feminine base of the cap, were pleasant to hold."
"The lavishness of the venison sandwich reminded him of the poor threads of meat between the thin rounds of gullet that he and his father had eaten, that hard year, on the way to Fort Totten."
"This was the time of year he and Rose had first met. Now Thomas stood on the slab of concrete beyond the circle of the outdoor flood lamp. Looked up into the cloudless sky and cold overlay of stars."
"The peculiar aliveness of things struck by late afternoon sunlight—hold on to it."
"You can never get enough of the ones you love."
"Seems you're mixed up with certain places, certain people, and you just got here."
"We've never lost somebody, in a bad way, from a relocation yet. Most of them come back after a few months."
"Sometimes I wonder if one of them will ever say, Gee, those damn Indians might have had an idea or two."
"The scent of the hair-oil spot was surprisingly pleasant, low and spicy."
"The warmth from her body radiated gently toward him under the blanket and warmed his right side."
"It felt as if his heart was being pierced by long sharp needles."
"Even poor people can love their land. You do not need money to love your home."
"We are advanced in some ways. That is true. But most of us are plain-out broke."
"We're from here. I can talk English, dig potatoes, take money into my hand, buy a car, but even if my skin was white it wouldn't make me white."
"We can't just turn into regular Americans. We can look like it, sometimes. Act like it, sometimes. But inside we are not. We're Indians."
"We are citizens. We pay taxes just like you. Only difference, not on our land."
"This bill would break up our land and let the BIA sell it off. They’d probably take a nickel on the dollar for it. Then we’d get relocated. Shipped off to the Cities."
"I myself happened to be in Washington a few years ago. I talked with the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of Indian affairs. They said it would take several decades for the Indians to become independent."
"We don’t want anything to do with this bill. We are going to fight it down. That is how it stands. We want things just as they are at the present and to go on as they are until something new comes out that is better than it is."
"I am not sure what study the information about our advancement, financially speaking, was based on. But I will tell you it was faulty."
"I can't turn all the way into a white man, either. That's how it is. I can talk English, dig potatoes, take money into my hand, buy a car, but even if my skin was white it wouldn't make me white. And I don’t want to give up our scrap of home. I love my home."
"Dread that he would not be able to stay awake. Dread that on the other hand, he might never sleep again."
"What Patrice had told him was so extreme an evil that it struck at his fundamental assumptions."
"Loneliness. The forces he was up against were implacable and distant."
"He had always, even in the face of hatred or drunken violence, believed that people did bad things out of ignorance or weakness or liquor."
"His thoughts veered off whenever he tried to imagine what those rooms implied."
"The wind came down out of Alberta and swooped across Manitoba, honing itself to ice."
"He was so cold that he knew he must give up and walk toward the lights of town, not walk but run, if he wanted to live."
"Without warning, they threw you down. That’s how it was to live with them."
"He cried out and felt that now he was welded by cold to the grass like poor Paranteau and his iron post."
"Radiance filled him and he reared up, knowing that the drummers wished him to dance."
"The leaves gold on green, bright in the soaking rain, padded the trails in the woods."
"Grace had treated his tail the same way and its gleaming crinkles nearly brushed the gravel road."
"He was sore, spiritually sore, so he went to the church and sat in a hard wooden pew."
"He didn’t know how to make the sign of the cross, but he waved his hand across his chest with a pleading gesture."
"The air in the church was soothing and faintly scented with spice. Perhaps incense."
"He pressed his jugular vein, his shoulder, a place on his chest where she’d actually drawn blood."
"The other car representing the jewel plant was Doris Lauder’s family car."
"Patrice tossed a couple of pieces of candy toward them."
"Valentine turned to Doris Lauder and they both began to laugh."
"The parade moved slowly but then was over quickly."
"Grace made a break out of the crowd, toward the schoolyard, or tried to."
"He lingered for no reason, still a bit crushed that Patrice hadn’t come to the dance."
"She smelled a bit like whiskey. They walked jauntily down the steps."
"I only live across the road," he said. "Thanks. I can walk from here."
"No, you can’t!" cried Valentine. "C’mon. We’re on our way to a bush dance!"
"He’d always wanted to go to one of those—fast music, wild dancing, homemade beer, wine, and maybe Pixie."
"Barnes was the last one out of the school. He lingered for no reason, still a bit crushed that Patrice hadn’t come to the dance."
"Tears had burned behind his eyes earlier on, when he realized she wouldn’t show up."
"Valentine was still there when he came through the front door."
"The snow had come down in the night, heavily, covering everything."
"The wind came up, kicking up ground blizzards."
"Wood Mountain’s strong chest, bare and glistening with sweat."
"I found a track this morning. I smelled him out there. Signs."
"Never play with a man’s heart. You never know who he is."
"An increasingly delighted young woman operates the rotating drum of a spirit duplicator."
"A lanky missionary stumbles in his sleep along a frozen road."
"A traditional Chippewa-Cree woman rubs bear grease into the skin of a wakeful baby."
"A very old man is talking to the small lights that came to visit him."
"A big thatch-haired blond man tries to get to second base with a slender woman who sits up suddenly and says, 'You’re sure clumsy.'"
"An extremely drunk fellow is bawling in the snow, pleading that his curse be lifted."
"Another man, only half drunk, plays an endless card game with his brothers."
"A horse named Gringo is the only horse covered with a blanket and still not satisfied."
"A solid and much fatigued woman sleeping on the floor of the tribal office begins to talk in her sleep. Too much salt, she says."
"A young woman with soft, bright eyes, often referred to by her teachers as 'elfin,' is filling out an order from the Montgomery Ward catalog."
"The cursed man is crawling toward his parents’ house, where every single person is sleeping hard."
"Several miles away, a worried man with a flowing pen is doing Palmer exercises at the jewel bearing plant."
"Roderick didn’t seem to be around tonight but there was such a strange feeling."
"Patrice walked into the gallery overlooking the floor of the House of Representatives."
"On the way home on the train, as the gray snow, the blinding snow, the dark fields flew by."
"He removed his thermos from his armpit and set it on the steel desk alongside his scuffed but no longer bulging briefcase."
"Millie worked late, preparing a master of the chairman’s report, which would be distributed to the tribe."
"Patrice still had perfect reading-distance vision, and her speed and precision with setting the jewels for drilling had returned."
"Thomas was ranging far and skimming back and forth in time."
"Aunishenaubay, Patrick Gourneau, was the chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Advisory Committee during the mid-1950s."