Mari Sandoz quotes:

There's no discounting the antagonism the average woman feels for the eldest daughter. The infuriating thing is that most mothers blame the daughters for their hatred when it's just what makes the mother pig eat her first batch of young. Of course one can't tell them that.

Indians still consider the whites a brutal people who treat their children like enemies - playthings, too, coddling them like pampered pets or fragile toys, but underneath always like enemies, enemies that must be restrained, bribed, spied upon, and punished. They believe that children so treated will grow up as dependent and immature as pets and toys, and as angry and dangerous as enemies within the family circle, to be appeased and fought.

The hills of one's youth are all mountains

writers don't like to write letters. Too much like work.