Julia Ward

“Their constant outward-looking, their mania for radios, cars, and a thousand other trinkets made them dream and fix their eyes upon the trash of life, made it impossible for them to learn a language which could have taught them to speak of what was in their or others' hearts. The words of their souls were the syllables of popular songs.”
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

“With some notable exceptions, Native Americans preserved their histories in oral, rather than written, stories. European colonists did not view these oral traditions as equivalent to their own histories.”
― Jennifer Raff, Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas