10 Quotes by Tomson Highway

English is so hierarchical. In Cree, we don't have animate-inanimate comparisons between things. Animals have souls that are equal to ours. Rocks have souls, trees have souls. Trees are 'who,' not 'what.

There's a major fault in Western society. It makes room for only one god, and in only one gender. There's no balance, no co-existence, no partnership.

I mean, if Native languages have no gender, then why should we? And why, for that matter, should God?

English is so hierarchical. In Cree, we don’t have animate-inanimate comparisons between things. Animals have souls that are equal to ours. Rocks have souls, trees have souls. Trees are ‘who,’ not ’what.

There’s a major fault in Western society. It makes room for only one god, and in only one gender. There’s no balance, no co-existence, no partnership.

We’re Indian! We have a right to conduct our own religious ceremonies, just like everyone else!

What I did, I did on my own. Don’t mourn me. Be joyful.

At night, when the streets of your cities and villages are silent, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them, and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people. For the dead are not powerless.

So although in one language, humankind is forbidden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, in the other it is not only permitted, it is encouraged. That is precisely what that goddamn tree is there for, for humankind to suck from its fruit, and suck and suck and suck and suck, thirty times a day if necessary.