W. Michael Gear > Quotes

“Success is not granted to the talented, rather it is reserved for the doggedly tenacious.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Morning Star

“Sanitizing the past is every bit as morally irresponsible as whitewashing atrocities in the present.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Moon

“I long to reach out, to pull Death close, to feel it wind around my shoulders and tighten about my waist. I want its chill to cup my breasts, and stroke my throat. Death’s cold thrust will spread from my womb through my hips and into my bones. As it slips around the base of my skull and lies metallic on my tongue, I can finally let go. Then, and only then, will I be free to find Badgertail again.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Moon

“We’ll sing and dance and suffer and die, but we’ll make lives here. Which is what existence is all about, isn’t it?”
― W. Michael Gear, Outpost

“The assumption spreads that government best knows what is good for its people, when ultimately it does not.”
― W. Michael Gear, Outpost

“happens when the Spiral is knocked out of balance. Earthmaker created the universe to have equal portions—Pain and Happiness, Birth and Death, Heat and Cold. That’s why the Spiral is so important. Its circles reach from the thinnest roots that dig into the ground to the perfect motions of the stars. Sometimes humans knock the Spiral out of kilter, sometimes animals do it. Every time a coyote runs through a flock of new lambs, killing for the sheer sport of it, without ever eating its prey … the Spiral tilts.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the River

“Marsh Hawk.”
― W. Michael Gear, Where the Basilisk Dreams: A Native American Historical Mystery Series

“savage. Illiterate, unschooled in the Classics, but she and I have argued endlessly, night on end, about the nature of God, and why the universe was created the way it was. She stunned me the other day, proposed that nothing could have existed until God split into two to create duality. Only when the Godhead had broken into male and female could it begin to define itself. It has interesting possibilities, since only in duality can identity be measured against something else.”
― W. Michael Gear, Coyote Summer

“Primero tienes que aprender a caminar.
Después aprenderás a danzar.
Luego se aprende a detenerla danza, para poder mirar bien al danzarín.
La Única Vida no es mas que una danza, y hay que aprender a sentir sus movimientos antes de poder comprenderla.”
― W. Michael Gear

“There are two sorts of people with whom you can never win an argument: those who base their belief on absolute faith, and those who know something by experience.”
― W. Michael Gear, Coyote Summer

“In Nazi-occupied Europe, having an unlicensed printing press was grounds for immediate arrest and execution. In Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968, possession of a mimeograph machine was a one-way ticket to the “re-education camp”. The state feared any uncontrolled communications among the people. The evolution of the internet was supposed to be the death knell of despots and dictators. It promised the free movement of information, discourse, and diversity of thought. The ultimate in freedom of speech for the masses. Who would have thought it would become a tool of self-reinforcement? Instead of broadening understanding, ideologues used it as a means of isolating themselves from those who did not share their beliefs and causes. And as a means of reinforcing their notions of “Truth”. The very lack of regulation meant any vitriol could be posted without censure. —”
― W. Michael Gear, Dissolution

“Si los muertos ven claramente, solo los vivos nos cegamos constante can trivalidades.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Wolf

“it!”
― W. Michael Gear, Children of the Dawnland: Part One

“La amabilidad es para los vivos. Los muertos ya no la necesitan.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Wolf

“Envìo tu alma a la Tribu de las Estrellas.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Wolf

“Todo el mundo piensa que no encaja del todo. Es parte de la maldición de ser humano.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Wolf

“Y dijieron uno al otro: He aquì viene el soñador.”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Wolf

“artificial security of the state and all its conventions and institutions”
― W. Michael Gear, Coyote Summer

“we only see clearly when we live inside the tears of other people.”
― W. Michael Gear, Bone Walker: A Native American Historical Mystery Series

“Flame Carrier was one of the Made People, a member of the Ant Clan, masons, architects, and artists. The First People’s ghosts locked inside Talon Town must be shrieking at the insult.”
― W. Michael Gear, Where the Basilisk Dreams: A Native American Historical Mystery Series

“Truth, my friend, is food, shelter, warmth, companionship, and living to see another sunset. There, damn you. How much more elemental can you get? That’s Truth.”
― W. Michael Gear, Coyote Summer

“We don’t take their religious beliefs, turn them into laws, and shove them down the throats of nonbelievers.”
― W. Michael Gear, Where the Basilisk Dreams: A Native American Historical Mystery Series

“¡Sin sueños no hay vida!”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Wolf

“thlatsina”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Moon

“Para soñar hace falta libertad, soledad...”
― W. Michael Gear, People of the Wolf

“they started hiring assassins to take each other’s lives.”
― W. Michael Gear, Where the Basilisk Dreams: A Native American Historical Mystery Series