Indian girls can be forgotten so well they forget themselves."
-- Terese Marie Mailhot (Indian Condition)

Importance: The quote speaks to the social and political reality that Native American girls are often neglected and forgotten, resulting in the contemporary crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. It also suggests that external neglect can easily be internalized to affect one's sense of self and/or one's mental health. By placing this quote within the context of her own childhood, Terese is linking the neglect of her youth to her own identity as both an individual and as a Native woman.

I learned how story was always meant to be for Indian women: immediate and necessary and fearless, like all good lies.
-- Terese Marie Mailhot (Indian Condition)

Importance: This quote speaks to the power of storytelling and links that power directly to Terese herself through her identity as an Indian woman. In this quote Mailhot also defines the power of storytelling as coming from its...