If you let whiteness in, it takes you for everything you’ve got.
-- Elissa Washuta (White Witchery: An Introduction)

Importance: This quote establishes how Washuta feels about white people and her belief that they consume everything that they do not see as their own. This is a theme that continues throughout all of the essays. Washuta frequently shows ways that the white settlers harm the Native people while taking their land. Even when the Native people tried to enter peaceful relations with the settlers, they were abused and forced to give up their livelihood and beliefs. Washuta sees this and feels it continues to be a problem in the modern day.

I speak every fear into the bucket: That I am not safe. That I am too wounded to be anything but a burden. That the best of me has taken, the rest of me left to grope for a calm that might never be anything but...
-- Elissa Washuta (White Witchery: An Introduction)