Philipp Meyer

No land was ever acquired honestly in the history of the earth.

— Philipp Meyer

“The strong took from the weak, only the weak believed otherwise.”

— Philipp Meyer

I wanted to think about our creation myth; you know, what is the fundamental story that defines America. And it certainly is…

— Philipp Meyer

If you're always thinking about someone else's work, about the tradition you're working in, how can you possibly make anything good?

— Philipp Meyer

There's a reason that all societies and cultures and small bands of humans engage in myth-making. Fundamentally, it is to help us…

— Philipp Meyer

“I went upstairs to my office. Lay in the dark among my books. The only comforting thing I have. An exile in…

— Philipp Meyer

When you take the fact that you're loved for granted, it frees your mind to go after every other thing there is.

— Philipp Meyer

At 16, I dropped out of school and spent five years working as a bicycle mechanic and volunteering in a Trauma Centre…

— Philipp Meyer

I like mechanical things; my first book was a mechanics guide - that was what my parents couldn't pry away from me;…

— Philipp Meyer

Since I quit banking, all my major life decisions, when they could, have revolved around writing.

— Philipp Meyer

I should say that generally I'm a pretty happy person, but as soon as I'm done with a project, I'm usually not…

— Philipp Meyer

“I have always found it interesting that white children take so quickly to Indian ways, while Indian children, when brought to be…

— Philipp Meyer

When we think of the myth of the settling of the West, this is our creation myth. But because we think of…

— Philipp Meyer

Fundamentally, all art is about human beings. You're always showing larger moral questions through the smaller moral, philosophical, or political choices through…

— Philipp Meyer

I just assume that I'll fail at something for several years - that I'll try my hardest and still fail for several…

— Philipp Meyer

You have to believe in yourself and only trust your own vision and instincts. If I'd listened to what other people thought…

— Philipp Meyer

“There was something particularly American about it--blaming yourself for bad luck--that resistance to seeing your life as affected by social forces, a…

— Philipp Meyer

“And one day...there would be no record, nothing left standing, to show that anything had ever been built in America. It was…

— Philipp Meyer

“And then...it wasn't just that we lost all those jobs, it was that people didn't have anything to be good at anymore.…

— Philipp Meyer

“Man today lives in a coffin of flesh. Hearing and seeing nothing. The Land and Law are perverted. The Good Book says…

— Philipp Meyer

She wondered how people would remember her. She had not made enough to spread her wealth around like Carnegie, to erase any…

— Philipp Meyer

“I might be killed any day, by whites or hostile Indians, I might be run down by a grizzly or a pack…

— Philipp Meyer

“There had been a time when this was not unusual. A time when the wealthy were exemplars. When you held yourself to…

— Philipp Meyer

“She had done right. Made something out of nothing. The human life span had doubled, you did not get to the hospital…

— Philipp Meyer

“Considered interrupting them to note that the entire history of humanity is marked by a single inexorable movement—from animal instinct toward rational…

— Philipp Meyer

“Naturally they all believe the Colonel is responsible for their salvation—who else could it be but Don Eli? This rankles greatly but…

— Philipp Meyer

“Unlike the white, billions of whom shared the same handful of names, all interchangeable in the end, a Comanche name lived and…

— Philipp Meyer

“My brother began to cry out in his sleep; I started to shake him, then stopped. There wasn’t any dream he could…

— Philipp Meyer

“The blood that ran through history would fill every river and ocean, but despite all the butchery, here you were.”

— Philipp Meyer

“You could not measure yourself against the dead, they retained their perfection while your flesh got weaker and weaker.”

— Philipp Meyer

“Perhaps another great ice will come and grind all this into dust. Leaving no trace of our existence, as even fire does.”

— Philipp Meyer

“What we need is another great ice to come and sweep us all into the ocean. To give God a second chance.”

— Philipp Meyer

“All the things you needed to know in life—you didn’t learn them until you’d already made your decisions.”

— Philipp Meyer

Nothing prepares you for making art except making art. You have to do it to get better.

— Philipp Meyer

“They all want to be rich, same as we do, but they do not admit to themselves that you only get rich…

— Philipp Meyer

Each time a high-wage job is lost, a family is turned upside down. And that affects the communities where they live.

— Philipp Meyer

Your job as a writer is to find storylines, narrative structures, and characters to show the things that you believe rather than…

— Philipp Meyer

“She knew why the Colonel had hated talking about the old days. Because the moment you looked back, and began to make…

— Philipp Meyer

I'd grown up in a working class neighborhood in Baltimore, a place hard hit by the offshoring of numerous heavy industries -…

— Philipp Meyer

“resacas have all gone dry. The entire earth, it seems, is being slowly transformed into”

— Philipp Meyer