Top 29 Quotes by Joy Harjo

I chose poetry. Actually, poetry chose me.

I never fit in. Everyone knew my dad was Indian. I was half-Indian.

My ancestors include Monahwee, who was one of the leaders in the Red Stick War, which was the largest Indian uprising in history, and Osceola, who refused to sign a treaty with the United States.

I believe in the sun. In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed and forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity.

We're all given something to do. And when we don't follow what we're supposed to do, we always know when we're off track.

I don't see the desert as barren at all; I see it as full and ripe. It doesn't need to be flattered with rain. It certainly needs rain, but it does with what it has, and creates amazing beauty.

I come from a long line of revolutionaries.

Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of meaning.

Sometimes, I think, in order to get to something that we really want or we really love or something that needs to be realized, that we're tested.

The homeland affects you directly: it affects your body; it affects the collective mind and the collective heart and the collective spirit.