"I knew the railroad was coming—I saw men already swarming into the land. I knew the derby hat, the smoking chimneys, the cord binder, and the 30-day note were upon us in a restless surge. I knew the wild riders and the vacant land were about to vanish forever... and the more I considered the subject, the bigger the forever loomed. Without knowing how to do it, I began to record some facts around me, and the more I looked the more the panorama unfolded."

“The Indians are most enlightened, for they have at least one distinct impression regarding government. They know that it never keeps it word. Any old chief will tell you that white men are all liars, and if you press him regarding it, he will prove it, and the only exception he will make is the white soldier.”

“The Northwest is dotted over with soldiers sleeping out in the snows of this winter because of this mismanagement of the Indian Bureau. With an instance of this incompetency before their eyes nearly half of the time, people in the East ought to understand, and every man who in the West come near enough to get the stench cannot but know it rottenness. It’s unchristian, it’s inhuman, it’s vile. It is the constantly recurring old story—a gross cause of mismanagement. And then the army is called in to be responsible—to protect the lives of the settlers, and in these days to shoot down a people who have the entire sympathy of every soldier in the ranks.”

“The Saxon race is not in a habit of dividing the spoils with a conquered one.”

“Cuba is not a new-born country, peopled by wood-cutting, bear-righting, agricultural folks, who must be fresh and virtuous in order to exist. It is an old country, time worn, decayed, and debauched by thieving officials and fire and sword.”

“The northern Cheyennes, after they surrendered to General Miles, irrigated and raised crops at the mouth of the Tongue River for two years, and almost immediately sank into poverty and sloth when given Interior Department rations, for which they did not have to work in order to procure.”

“Art is a she-devil of a mistress, and if at times in earlier days she would not even stoop to my way of thinking, I have preserved and so will continue.”