Mandie Austin

“one explanation did not rule out the other, that charged electrons could be spirits, that nothing ruled out anything else, that mathematics was a rigorous form of madness,”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

“Everything ceased. She listened hard. Nothing, nothing, nothing. But she could feel the calm breathing of the night. She put on her mother’s mitts, took the ax, stepped out the door. Outside, there was resounding silence. The black sky was a poem beyond meaning.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

“Patrice had come to think that humans treated the concept of God, or Gizhe Manidoo, or the Holy Ghost, in a childish way. She was pretty sure that the rules and trappings of ritual had nothing to do with God, that they were ways for people to imagine they were doing things right in order to escape from punishment, or harm, like children. She had felt the movement of something vaster, impersonal yet personal, in her life. She thought that maybe people in contact with that nameless greatness had a way of catching at the edges, a way of being pulled along or even entering this thing beyond experience.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

“An enemy has to be defeated in battle, but an adversary’s different. You must outwit an adversary.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman