Tony Hillerman > Quotes

“From where we stand the rain seems random. If we could stand somewhere else, we would see the order in it.”
― Tony Hillerman, Coyote Waits

“Everything is connected. The wing of the corn beetle affects the direction of the wind, the way the sand drifts, the way the light reflects into the eye of man beholding his reality. All is part of totality, and in this totality man finds his hozro, his way of walking in harmony, with beauty all around him.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Ghostway

“IF you are not for yourself, who will be for you? If you are only for yourself, what are you? If not now, when?”
― HIllerman, Tony

“An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.”
― Tony Hillerman

“Terrible drought, crops dead, sheep dying. Spring dried up. No water. The Hopi, and the Christian, maybe the Moslem, they pray for rain. The Navajo has the proper ceremony done to restore himself to harmony with the drought. You see what I mean. The system is designed to recognize what's beyond human power to change, and then to change the human's attitude to be content with the inevitable." - Tony Hillerman, Sacred Clowns, 1993”
― Tony Hillerman

“But if I'd known I was going to live so damn long, I'd have taken better care of myself.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Fallen Man

“Beyond meeting simple immediate needs, the Navajo Way placed little worth on property. In fact, being richer than one’s clansmen carried with it a social stigma. It was unnatural, and therefore suspicious.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way

“Coyote is always out there waiting, and Coyote is always hungry.”
― Tony Hillerman, Coyote Waits

“Our society doesn’t have the proper respect for magna cum laude”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way

“was not a Navajo concept, this idea of adjusting nature to human needs. The Navajo adjusted himself to remain in harmony with the universe. When nature withheld the rain, the Navajo sought the pattern of this phenomenon—as he sought the pattern of all things-to find its beauty and live in harmony with it.”
― Tony Hillerman, Listening Woman

“Leaphorn had found that listening carefully to lies is sometimes very revealing of the truth.”
― Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead

“Had a doctor tell me I ought to quit this stuff [bourbon] because it was affecting my eardrums and I told him I liked what I was drinking better'n what I was hearing.”
― Tony Hillerman, Listening Woman

“that the only goal for man was beauty, and that beauty was found only in harmony, and that this harmony of nature was a matter of dazzling complexity.”
― Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead

“My dad taught us that being late is really rude. It tells the other person you think you’re more important than they are.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Sinister Pig

“Memorize places,” his uncle had told him. “Settle your eyes on a place and learn it. See it under the snow, and when first grass is growing, and as the rain falls on it. Feel it and smell it, walk on it, touch the stones, and it will be with you forever. When you are far away, you can call it back. When you need it, it is there, in your mind.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Ghostway

“In empty country everybody knew everything about everybody. One's inner thoughts seemed to transmit themselves through the clear, dry air without need for verbalizing.”
― Tony Hillerman, Sacred Clowns

“said. His”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way

“The white man sees the desolation and calls it a desert, McKee thought, but the Navajo name for it means “Beautiful Valley.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way

“Did he expect to be in a hurry coming down? Maybe, Leaphorn thought. Maybe that was it. Time. But Navajos didn't hurry. In fact, there was no word in the Navajo language for time.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way

“She’s an anthropologist … You translate the word from academic into English and that’s what it means: ruins looter, one who robs graves, preferably old ones. Well-educated person who steals artifacts in a dignified manner.” Arnold overcome by the wit of this, laughed, “Somebody else does it they call 'em vandals. That’s the word for competition. Somebody gets there first, gets off with the stuff before archaeologists can grab it, they call ‘em Thieves of Time.”
― Tony Hillerman, A Thief of Time

“offending either Bernie or Jim. First he would hand to whomever opened the door the big woven basket of fruit, flowers, and candies that Professor Louisa Bourbonette had arranged as their wedding gift, and then keep the conversation focused on what they had thought of Hawaii on their”
― Tony Hillerman, The Shape Shifter

“A Yellow Raft on Blue Water. He’d left it opened to page 158. A hard place to stop.”
― Tony Hillerman, Talking God

“I guess you’d say there’s an old law that takes precedence over the white man’s penal code.”
― Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead

“Navajos did not kill with cold-blooded premeditation. Nor did they kill for profit. To do so violated the scale of values of The People. Beyond meeting simple immediate needs, the Navajo Way placed little worth on property. In fact, being richer than one’s clansmen carried with it a social stigma. It was unnatural, and therefore suspicious.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way

“where sophistication required the deeper and more difficult knowledge of how one walked in beauty, content in a difficult world?”
― Tony Hillerman, Hunting Badger

“By whiteman’s standards, Leaphorn thought, Bowlegs had a net worth of maybe one hundred dollars. The white world’s measure of his life. And what would the Navajo measure be? The Dinee made a harder demand—that man find his place in the harmony of things.”
― Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead

“make the deer come out where you could shoot them. But maybe the kangaroo rats”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way

“I'm getting to be like a white man," she said. "I'm getting in a hurry for you to tell me what this is all about.”
― Tony Hillerman, Talking God

“Leaphorn didn't comment. It was the decision he would have made. Handle it on Navajo time. No reason to rush in there.”
― Tony Hillerman, A Thief of Time

“But Navajos didn’t hurry. In fact, there was no word in the Navajo language for time.”
― Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way