Top 29 Quotes by Joy Harjo

Most people don't know that Congo Square was originally a Muscogee ceremonial ground... in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz.

I hear from my Inuit and Yupik relatives up north that everything has changed. It's so hot; there is not enough winter. Animals are confused. Ice is melting.

Someone accompanies every soul from the other side when it enters this place. Usually it is an ancestor with whom that child shares traits and gifts.

I am a member of the Muskogee people. I'm a poet, a musician, a dreamer of sorts, a questioner. Like everyone else, I'm looking for answers of some sort or the other.

I've been present at birth, and death is just as present and in equal balance. And I've been present at death, and birth is just as present, again in equal balance.

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.

The radio is playing jazz, and I listen to the sound of the trumpet playing a solo until I become that sound.

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

When you play a sax, that saxophone is irreverent. It's noisy; it's a trickster... you cannot hide the saxophone in your hands, so it's a good teacher.