“Ritual provides coherence and significance to traditional narrative as it does to traditional life.”

— Paula Gunn Allen, The Sacred Hoop (1986)

About Paula Gunn Allen

Laguna Pueblo and Sioux poet, scholar and novelist, author of 'The Sacred Hoop' (1986).

“Acceptance is the better part of grief.”

“Isn't it time we realized the absurdity of calling a tiny brook a mainstream, consigning the great river to marginality?”

“Walden is the self-proclaimed triumph of the isolated, superior individual.”

“The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can.”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.”

“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.”