“It’s what we put in our minds and our hearts to succeed. And success isn’t about money.”

He was out with his friends drinking and on medication for depression, and he didn’t come out of the water alive.

After that movie I said, “Y’know what, I have to realistically wear my emotions now when I do a job. That’s gotta be as real as it gets. It’s not just dialogue anymore.”

I do a lot of inspirational talks for kids, to motivate them to change their lives and give them hope.

This movie shows that perspective from Scott’s character, and I love it. It shows the American Indians as the ones who respect and help out when people are needed. It’s a nice little twist.

Well to me growing, up I’ve had my own psychological war with my parents dying at such a young age. My mother was killed by a drunk driver, then two months later my father drowned.

I’m not gonna fall. I’m tired of falling. I’m tired of seeing our people fall. I don’t believe in failure.

Smoke Signals really mirrored the way I grew up and how I felt, and that movie was the first time I’d dealt with my parents’ death and how I felt that loss and sadness and anger.

Acting for me was an escape and it wasn’t until Smoke Signals that made me realize that acting is a personal development and challenge to grow.

I think when I started acting it was the first time I got the freedom of expression.

When faced with structural injustice, especially in the form of oppressive military occupations,

We [Americans] have a historical trauma when it comes to the past relationships when it comes to Native Americans and the history of how America was created.

Ever since I started acting, I’ve always spoken to our people about identity. I’ve spoken to kids, telling them: “Where do I get my strength to push through the barriers to get me where I’m at today? It’s my culture and my traditions, you know?

Growing up with sexual abuse and having to be in gangs and dealing with my own trauma; finding the cultural identity when I was 16, and learning those traditional ways saved me from hurting myself.

We [Native Americans] respect being human beings, but also the natural and spiritual world and I thought that came across wonderfully

I was able to express certain emotions and feelings that I could put into other characters, so it was a good way for me to run away from ho I personally was.

Success isn’t about the biggest house in the world. Success is about loving your family, taking care of your child.

It is better to stand alone with the truth, than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one Gospel.

If you succeed without sacrifice it is because someone has suffered before you.

The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed.

Man needs a guru. But a man must have faith in the guru’s words. He succeeds in spiritual life by looking on his guru as God Himself.

If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out.

Trust me–with women worth the being won, The softest lover ever best succeeds.

Try to bring me down, but you will never succeed because I’m always moving upward. Maybe not before, but now … I am.

No one fails alone and no one succeeds alone.