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1 " Part of her soul ... gloried in the sheer bodacious unnaturalness of it. Putting a great blue-green water park smack down in the red desert complete with cactus, trading posts, genuine Navajo Indians, and five kinds of rattlesnakes was theater of the absurd at its most outrageous. "
― Nevada Barr , The Rope (Anna Pigeon, #17)
2 " There is much to be learned from the world around us—far more than we normally comprehend. The Ancient Ones knew this well—most particularly the wise teachers among them—those who, in the Navajo tongue, were called " Anasazi. "
3 " Despite all of the time he spent in Big Heart's, Wilson had never come to understand the social lives of Indians. He did not know that, in the Indian world, there is not much social difference between a rich Indian and a poor one. Generally speaking, Indian is Indian. A few who gain wealth and power as lawyers, businessmen, artists, or doctors may marry white people and keep only white friends, but generally Indians of different classes interact freely with one another. Most unemployed or working poor, some with good jobs and steady incomes, but all mixing together. Wilson also did not realize how tribal distinctions were much more important than economic ones. The rich and poor Spokanes may hang out together, but that doesn't necessarily mean the Spokanes are friendly with the Lakota or Navajo or any other tribe. The Sioux still distrust the Crow because they served as scouts for Custer. Hardly anybody likes the Pawnee. Most important, though, Wilson did not understand that the white people who pretend to be Indian are gently teased, ignored, plainly ridiculed, or beaten, depending on their degree of whiteness. "
― Sherman Alexie , Indian Killer
4 " George Arthur, a tribal council delegate, spoke on behalf of the tribe. Arthur was a chairman, too, of the Navajo legislature's resources committee. . . ." Uranium mining and milling on and near the reservation has been a disaster for the Navajo people. The Department of the Interior has been in the pocket of the uranium industry, favoring its interest and breaching its trust duties to the Navajo mineral owners. We are still undergoing what appears to be a never-ending federal experiment to see how much devastation can be endured by a people and a society from exposure to radiation in the air, in the water, in mines and on the surface of the land. We are unwilling to be the subjects of that ongoing experiment any longer. "
5 " I always have one or two, sometimes more, Navajo or other tribes' cultural elements in mind when I start a plot. In Thief of Time, I wanted to make readers aware of Navajo attitude toward the dead, respect for burial sites. "
