Joy Harjo Quotes

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  • Poet
  • born 1951
  • 60 quotes

Joy Harjo, a poet (born 1951), is quoted 60 times on QuoteForever. The subjects that come up most often are Earth, Sun, Red and Inspirational.

Quotes with a ready-made image come first, then the rest in order of how often they are read and shared. Open any quote to copy it, share it, or turn it into a picture quote.

My house is the red earth . . . .

I started writing to save my life.

I was born with eyes that can never close.

I chose poetry. Actually, poetry chose me.

I come from a long line of revolutionaries.

There is no poetry where there are no mistakes.

I know I walk in and out of several worlds each day.

Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.

Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.

True power does not amass through the pain and suffering of others.

I never fit in. Everyone knew my dad was Indian. I was half-Indian.

My generation is now the door to memory. That is why I am remembering.

But come here, Fear. / I am alive! / And you are so afraid / of dying.

I believe that poets have to be inside their poems somewhere, or the poem won't work.

My mother wrote lyrics and sang but was overtaken by life with four children and worked.

I've always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies

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

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

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

It is memory that provides the heart with impetus, fuels the brain, and propels the corn plant from seed to fruit.

I listen to the gunfire we cannot hear, and begin this journey with the light of knowing the root of my own furious love.

We're all given something to do. And when we don't follow what we're supposed to do, we always know when we're off track.

Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of meaning.

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

You just go where poetry is, whether it's in your heart or your mind or in books or in places where there's live poetry or recordings.

The homeland affects you directly: it affects your body; it affects the collective mind and the collective heart and the collective spirit.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their families, their histories too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.

My sister accommodates me, never reproaches me with her doctrine, never tries to change me. She accepts and loves me, despite our differences.

If you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you. Or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned.

Sometimes, I think, in order to get to something that we really want or we really love or something that needs to be realized, that we're tested.

Because Music is a language that lives in the spiritual realms, we can hear it, we can notate it and create it, but we cannot hold it in our hands

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

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.

In Isleta the rainbow was a crack in the universe. We saw the barest of all life that is possible. Bright horses rolled over and over the dusking sky.

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.

I've always loved the desert. I've spent most of my life in the Southwest. It's certainly influenced my work. I used to dream about it when I was young.

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.

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.

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.

Bottom line, I have to follow what my soul says, or my spirit. And my spirit said that poetry and the arts should be without borders, should be without political borders.

There is no separation. We are all from the same place. As long as there is respect and acknowledgement of connections, things continue working. When that stops we all die.

When explorers first encountered my people, they called us heathens, sun worshippers. They didn't understand that the sun is a relative and illuminates our path on this earth.

If we cry more tears we will ruin the land with salt; instead let's praise that which would distract us with despair. Make a song for death, a song for yellow teeth and bad breath

The woman hanging from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago is not alone...She is all the women of the apartment building who stand watching her, watching themselves.

You can't look for love, or it will run away from you. But, you know, don't look for it. Don't look for it. Just go where it is and appreciate it, and, you know, it will find you.

I love the sound of the saxophone. It became my singing voice, and it sounds so human. The saxophone could carry the words past the border of words. It can carry it a little bit farther.

A story matrix connects all of us. There are rules, processes, and circles of responsibility in this world. And the story begins exactly where it is supposed to begin. We cannot skip any part.

I don't see the desert as barren at all; I see it as full and ripe. It doesn't need to be flattered with rain. It certainly needs rain, but it does with what it has, and creates amazing beauty.

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.

It took me 14 years to write 'Crazy Brave' because I kept changing the form and I also kept running away from the story. I said I don't really want to write about myself. But it's about writing about memory.

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