“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”
―
David Grann,
Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI
“There was one question that the judge and the prosecutors and the defense never asked the jurors but that was central to the proceedings: Would a jury of twelve white men ever punish another white man for killing an American Indian? One skeptical reporter noted, “The attitude of a pioneer cattleman toward the full-blood Indian…is fairly well recognized.” A prominent member of the Osage tribe put the matter more bluntly: “It is a question in my mind whether this jury is considering a murder case or not. The question for them to decide is whether a white man killing an Osage is murder—or merely cruelty to animals.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Years later, another member [of the Royal Geographical Society] conceded, "Explorers are not, perhaps, the most promising people with whom to build a society. Indeed, some might say that explorers become explorers precisely because they have a streak of unsociability and a need to remove themselves at regular intervals as far as possible from their fellow men.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“What is gone is treasured because it was what we once were. We gather our past and present into the depths of our being and face tomorrow. We are still Osage. We live and we reach old age for our forefathers.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“As Sherlock Holmes famously said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Loneliness is not intolerable when enthusiasm for a quest fills the mind.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“There never has been a country on this earth that has fallen except when that point was reached…where the citizens would say, ‘We cannot get justice in our courts.’ ” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“In May, when coyotes howl beneath an unnervingly large moon, taller plants, such as spiderworts and black-eyed Susans, begin to creep over the tinier blooms, stealing their light and water. The necks of the smaller flowers break and their petals flutter away, and before long they are buried underground. This is why the Osage Indians refer to May as the time of the flower-killing moon.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“...much of the discovery of the world was based on failure rather than on success--on tactical errors and pipe dreams.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“Does God think that, because it is raining, I am not going to destroy the world? - Lope de Aguirre after going mad in the Amazon” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“The world’s richest people per capita were becoming the world’s most murdered.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Fawcett, quoting a companion, wrote that cannibalism “at least provides a reasonable motive for killing a man, which is more than you can say for civilized warfare.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“Yet an ugliness often lurked beneath the reformist zeal of Progressivism. Many Progressives—who tended to be middle-class white Protestants—held deep prejudices against immigrants and blacks and were so convinced of their own virtuous authority that they disdained democratic procedures.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Your money draws them and you're absolutely helpless. They have all the law and all the machinery on their side. Tell everybody, when you write your story, that they're scalping our souls out here” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Empires preserve their power with the stories that they tell, but just as critical are the stories they don’t—the dark silences they impose, the pages they tear out.” ― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
“Anthropologists,” Heckenberger said, “made the mistake of coming into the Amazon in the twentieth century and seeing only small tribes and saying, ‘Well, that’s all there is.’ The problem is that, by then, many Indian populations had already been wiped out by what was essentially a holocaust from European contact. That’s why the first Europeans in the Amazon described such massive settlements that, later, no one could ever find.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“Many accidents happen to white people because they don't believe their dreams.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“There was one question that the judge and the prosecutors and the defense never asked the jurors but that was central to the proceedings: Would a jury of twelve white men ever punish another white man for killing an American Indian? One skeptical reporter noted, “The attitude of a pioneer cattleman toward the full-blood Indian…is fairly well recognized.” A prominent member of the Osage tribe put the matter more bluntly: “It is a question in my mind whether this jury is considering a murder case or not. The question for them to decide is whether a white man killing an Osage is murder—or merely cruelty to animals.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Years later, another member [of the Royal Geographical Society] conceded, "Explorers are not, perhaps, the most promising people with whom to build a society. Indeed, some might say that explorers become explorers precisely because they have a streak of unsociability and a need to remove themselves at regular intervals as far as possible from their fellow men.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“What is gone is treasured because it was what we once were. We gather our past and present into the depths of our being and face tomorrow. We are still Osage. We live and we reach old age for our forefathers.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“As Sherlock Holmes famously said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Loneliness is not intolerable when enthusiasm for a quest fills the mind.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“There never has been a country on this earth that has fallen except when that point was reached…where the citizens would say, ‘We cannot get justice in our courts.’ ” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“In May, when coyotes howl beneath an unnervingly large moon, taller plants, such as spiderworts and black-eyed Susans, begin to creep over the tinier blooms, stealing their light and water. The necks of the smaller flowers break and their petals flutter away, and before long they are buried underground. This is why the Osage Indians refer to May as the time of the flower-killing moon.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“...much of the discovery of the world was based on failure rather than on success--on tactical errors and pipe dreams.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“Does God think that, because it is raining, I am not going to destroy the world? - Lope de Aguirre after going mad in the Amazon” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“The world’s richest people per capita were becoming the world’s most murdered.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Fawcett, quoting a companion, wrote that cannibalism “at least provides a reasonable motive for killing a man, which is more than you can say for civilized warfare.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“Yet an ugliness often lurked beneath the reformist zeal of Progressivism. Many Progressives—who tended to be middle-class white Protestants—held deep prejudices against immigrants and blacks and were so convinced of their own virtuous authority that they disdained democratic procedures.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression.” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Your money draws them and you're absolutely helpless. They have all the law and all the machinery on their side. Tell everybody, when you write your story, that they're scalping our souls out here” ― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
“Empires preserve their power with the stories that they tell, but just as critical are the stories they don’t—the dark silences they impose, the pages they tear out.” ― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
“Anthropologists,” Heckenberger said, “made the mistake of coming into the Amazon in the twentieth century and seeing only small tribes and saying, ‘Well, that’s all there is.’ The problem is that, by then, many Indian populations had already been wiped out by what was essentially a holocaust from European contact. That’s why the first Europeans in the Amazon described such massive settlements that, later, no one could ever find.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
“Many accidents happen to white people because they don't believe their dreams.” ― David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
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