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" I was going mad. One day, I just started writing, and it was like therapy because I was in a position where I couldn't rage. I never expected to be a writer; it's a different world than I ever expected to be in. "

John Trudell

Writing

Day

Mad

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" I don't want to tell people how to remember me. I want people to remember me as they remember me. "

" It's always good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you have someplace to go where you're part of a people. "

" The whole point is to take from our native culture and from contemporary culture without using one art form to mimic the other, so that our native identity remains the native identity, the contemporary identity remains the contemporary identity, and the mixing of these two musical identities creates a third musical identity. "

" One Earth, one mother - one does not sell the Earth. "

" I'm not a musician making words to go with my music. "

John Trudell

Music

Words

" In a personal context, I'm not in the ground, and I'm not in an institution. So I guess I'm doing pretty good. "

" I'm basically a starving artist. "

" We cannot change the political system, we cannot change the economic system, we cannot change the social system, until the people control the land, and then we take it out of the hands of that sick minority that chooses to pervert the meaning and the intention of humanity. "

" When I left politics in the early Eighties and started writing and recording, my idea was that I could have an influence further down into other generations. That Natives could come into the culture through arts and music. "

" What I view life like is about energy. Everything is about energy - everything. We physically are little units of electrical energy, and we vibrate and project electromagnetic thought. "

" There have been some positive things that have happened for the tribes, but it's a constant, vigilant fight about protecting what resources we have in terms of land and rights. "

" When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth, the truth must come from culture and art. "

" I wanted to take the power of thought and the word, along with the power of speaking and heart, and see if we could wire what was coming out of us as humans with electric instruments. "

" I consider the electric guitar to be like a drum with strings. It became the drum of the Baby Boom generation. And the drum has always been the center of the tribe, a new electronic tribe. "

" From activist stage, I just spoke and said whatever I had to say. When the writing started, I would just read it. Then I had the interest into going into musical aspects. When that happened in '86, I liked the result of work we did in the studio. "

" I find there is room in music to talk with music. It may expand ways people can participate with music. It doesn't sound hokey or like some kind of voice-over. "

" All politics to me - Indian or white - is an illusion preventing us from being authentic because we're communicating through something that isn't real to us. "

John Trudell

White

Real

" White people don't seem to have many Elders. They do have a lot of oldsters. "

" I knew I had to stop running. I had to be in a place. Los Angeles became that place. "

" I wasn't interested in having to live with a camera - I have a hard enough time getting along with myself. I don't need cameras around and all that action. "

" Everybody interprets things differently with their own perception, and I want poetry to pull out of them their own feelings. "

" The average human being in America is going through some sort of hard times - physical, emotional, psychological. Everybody's carrying a bit of bone days in them. "

" For decades, my identity was political, but I've come to understand that there's no political solution when you're dealing with someone else's rules. "

" For us, it's a matter of just staying alive and getting the best deal we can now. Eventually, this will all straighten out. It may be two generations away or 10 generations away, but time is irrelevant in that sense. As long as we, as a people, stay alive, we will survive. "

" You go back and you read your Constitution. You read your Declaration of Independence. And you will see that the only people who could decide these freedoms were white males who owned property, and all the rest of us were excluded. "

" My influences in this world have always been Crazy Horse and Malcolm X, my overall influences. But I was influenced by rock n' roll, blues, and country music. I was influenced by singers. "

" I have a real interest in working with younger Native artists. I think it's a very important way for Native people to communicate the realities of our culture and remember our ancestors. "

" I appreciate all of your expressions of concern, and I appreciate all of your expressions of love. It has been like a fire to my heart. "

" I am just a human being trying to make it in a world that is rapidly losing its understanding of being human. "

" Every song I've ever written always starts with the words because I want the music to be the musical extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music. "