When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape. Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves

We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.
― Louise Erdrich, The Bingo Palace

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. ― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum