Smoke Signals (1998)
Memorable Quotes

Grandma Builds-the-Fire: You saved Thomas. You did a good thing.
Arnold Joseph: I didn't mean to.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire: Hey Victor! I'm sorry 'bout your dad.
Victor Joseph: How'd you hear about it?
Thomas Builds-the-Fire: I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. And your mom was just in here cryin'.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire: Sometimes it's a good day to die, sometimes it's a good day to have breakfast.

Victor Joseph: Quit grinning like an idiot. Indians aint supposed to smile like that! Get stoic, like this. You gotta look mean or people won't respect you.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire: I guess your warrior look doesn't work every time.
Victor Joseph: Shut up Thomas!

Thomas Builds-the-Fire: You know the only thing more pathetic than Indians on T.V.? Indians watching Indians on T.V.!

Suzy Song: He didn't mean to die here he wanted to go home; he always wanted to go home.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire: And then I told Victor I thought we were all traveling heavy with illusions.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire: You know, you got it all wrong; maybe you don't know who you are.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire: You make your mom cry.
Victor Joseph: Shut up Thomas!
Thomas Builds-the-Fire: You make your mom cry. Your dad left her sure, but you left her too, but what you did was worse, you stayed there.

Victor Joseph: I don't drink, never had a drop of alcohol in my life, not a drop.
Sheriff: What kind of Indian are you?

Victor Joseph: I can't believe we got outta that guy's office alive
Thomas Builds-the-Fire: Yeah, I guess your warrior look does work sometimes.

Thomas Builds-the Fire: Victor I am going to make one more trip to the river and I am going to toss these in and your Dad's ashes will rise and rise into the heavens, just like the salmon.
Victor Joseph: (laughing) Funny I was thinking about doing the same thing myself. I mean I never thought of my dad like a salmon but it would be just like cleaning out the attic, like throwing things away when they have no more use.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire: Hey Victor, do you know why your dad really left?
Victor Joseph: Yeah. He didn't mean to Thomas.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
How do we forgive our fathers, maybe in a dream?
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us to often, or forever, when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage, or making us nervous, because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.
Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying our mothers, for divorcing, or not divorcing our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning, for shutting doors, for speaking through walls, or never speaking, or never being silent?

Do we forgive our fathers in our age or in theirs?
Or in their deaths, saying it to them, or not saying it?
If we forgive our fathers what is left?