Shaman Quotes

“You can only kill disappointment with a new try.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“There are no secrets, there is no mystery. We make that all up. In fact, it's all right there in front of us. You have to have enough food to get through winter and spring. That's what it all comes down to. You have to live in a way that will gather enough food each fall to get through winter.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“Becoming a shaman is a fate that can strike anyone. Even you.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“Bad things don’t just grow on one path, they’re everywhere. So don’t blame yourself when those things happen. Don’t let yesterday take up much of today.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“The one who tells the stories rules the world.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“It’s fragile what we know. It’s gone every time we forget. Then someone has to learn it all over again.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson , Shaman

“Best to keep running. Run in the same way one would run on the hunt, just as hard and steady, just as long. Indeed given what was at stake it made sense to go much longer than when on the hunt. Run right through his second wind, run until the rare and elusive third wind filled him, then run some more.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“And the old ones were burly people, as strong as bears or wolverines. One of Thorn’s stories told how an old one had married a bear by mistake, and neither of them had noticed; their daughter told them about it years later, not at all pleased with them.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“In dreams you should focus on flying, because you can’t fly in this world, but you can in the dream world. And when you fly in the dream world, that gives you practice for when you fly in the spirit world. The spirit world and the dream world aren’t the same, but they come together in the sky. The dream world is inside this world, the spirit world is outside it, but you can fly in both. And they meet, too, out beyond the sky. So you can fly back and forth. The spirit world is where all the worlds meet, that’s why shamans go there. So when you’re there you can be in all of them at once.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“This noisy black creature would be the start of it all: a horse startled, his eye round, scraped white around it, a white tear streak under the eye, also scraped. Mouth open as it whinnied in protest at being seen, then reared and wheeled away, as it had done on the ridge, in that moment when some part of Loon had been born, his wander’s great moment, when he had realized the world was stuffed with a meaning he couldn’t express. Right here he would express what could not be expressed, for all to see.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman: A novel of the Ice Age

“A pinch of mother is worth a pack of shaman.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“—I don’t know how I’ll be as a shaman. I’ll find out when I try it. You both know me. You’ve known me since before we even had names. I can’t travel in my dreams, or above the sky. There aren’t any spirits that talk to me or through me. I can’t sing the songs. I can’t help people who are sick. But I’ll tell you this, and he raised his right forefinger before them and seized them with his eyes: —I can paint that fucking cave.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“It was important to get things right, especially if you were going to make sayings out of them.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“Now he stood in the farthest end of the cave, in front of the great lion chase he had watched Thorn paint so long ago. He saw again: it was by far the greatest painting in the the cave, maybe the world. Maybe it would always be the greatest painting.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“no one else can live your life for you.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“She dismissed his puzzled frown with a wave.—We’re deeper than we can see. There are other people down inside us doing things. We get carried along by what they do.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“Heather the midwife, the herb woman, the loudmouth, the witch, the crone, the horrible hag, the deadly poisoner. A very busy and bossy old woman, small and bent and proud to have three teeth left, two opposed. The spider was her animal, and it was said she turned into one sometimes.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“They [women] looked at you-they looked at everything-with a most piercing glance. They were the most curious animals of all, even more than their sisters fox and cat.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“To get what you want, get what you need. When the fire is hot enough, there is no smoke. No fear when in your place. Do not allow anger to poison you. Each person is his own judge. It is not good for anyone to be alone. Everyone who does well must have dreamed something. The one who tells the stories rules the world.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“I can paint that fucking cave.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman

“Bad things don’t just grow on one path, they’re everywhere.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman