Sherman Alexie Quotes

I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture.

Sherman Alexie

• Culture
• Storytelling

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Quotes to Explore

• I enjoy pushing my characters to the limit. No matter how far out there I go, I look for things that make the characters human.

  

  Dana Carvey
  • Enjoy
  • Look
  • Limit

• If your aim is to attack the United States, it is hard to imagine a more difficult way of getting here than by posing as a refugee.

  

  Samantha Power
  • Way
  • Difficult
  • Aim

• People don't get through to the essence of you right away - it's always the famous 'girl' or the famous 'girlfriend'. I'd rather be known for myself.

  

  Vanessa Paradis
  • People
  • Girl
  • Myself

• I've always enjoyed making people laugh. But in order for me to be funny, I have to get ticked off about something.

  

  Carl Hiaasen
  • People
  • Funny
  • Laugh

• I had one week in the fall of 1996 where I was like, 'I'm America's greatest living teenage poet.'

  

  Garth Risk Hallberg
  • America
  • Fall
  • Week

• I don't want to be on the Internet.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • Want
  • Internet

• When I wrote the eight fairy tales that appear in 'Horse, Flower, Bird' I was working toward a completely new form of artistic expression, trying to create a new kind of tale that also felt vintage: innocent and childlike, but haunted. I tried to write a picture-less picture book.

  

  Kate Bernheimer
  • Trying
  • Book
  • Picture

• Sure, I'll have characters drop in and out of books but the main cast of characters always changes. Maybe I'm wrong but I think if had the same joe detective guy or gal, I wouldn't write them as well; I wouldn't do as good a job.

  

  Carl Hiaasen
  • Good
  • Job
  • Guy

• You don't need to wear Spanx if you buy my clothes. The dress, the trousers, the pencil skirt - they should do the work.

  

  L'Wren Scott
  • Work
  • Clothes
  • Dress

• Sound as medium has an incredible elasticity. So, of course, it is tempting for artists of other fields to try something with sounds. Why not? We are living in the age when there is no limit in gathering all forms of art and music to mix it together if you so desire.

  

  Yoko Ono
  • Music
  • Why
  • Art

• When I had worked on my first book, I had readily shown bits and pieces to everyone - for encouragement, to force myself to write.

  

  Karan Mahajan
  • Book
  • Myself
  • Encouragement

• Architecture is unnecessarily difficult. It's very tough.

  

  Zaha Hadid
  • Architecture
  • Very
  • Tough

• Biochemistry is the science of life. All our life processes - walking, talking, moving, feeding - are essentially chemical reactions. So biochemistry is actually the chemistry of life, and it's supremely interesting.

  

  Aaron Ciechanover
  • Life
  • Science
  • Interesting

• With Shakespeare, there's no subtext; you're speaking exactly what you're thinking constantly.

  

  Oscar Isaac
  • Thinking
  • You
  • Speaking

• I do read all my work aloud as I'm working - this has made it a little hard to adjust to my husband's retirement. I can shout the shouty parts if I'm alone in the house, but of course, I feel a fool if someone is there to hear me.

  

  Karen Joy Fowler
  • Work
  • House
  • Alone

• You don't only have the need to do it well because leading a country is something quite important, but also because I am the first woman I have the obligation to do it the best possible way so my country can continue voting for women in the future. It is a big responsibility.

  

  Laura Chinchilla
  • Important
  • Women
  • Country

• Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what poetry has taught me is the fact that I need to embrace mystery in order to be completely human.

  

  Yusef Komunyakaa
  • World
  • Poetry
  • Human

• Sometimes I wake up and think I look horrible. And sometimes I see a strong woman.

  

  Irina Shayk
  • Up
  • Strong
  • Woman

• Young girls in particular aren't given a space to be messy and complicated and express themselves and experiment - they're told to be a little quieter and a little less than.

  

  Rachel Keller
  • Space
  • Young
  • Messy

• I always grapple with myself, from job to job, 'Is this going to make an impact in some way?'

  

  Jimmy Smits
  • Job

• The medieval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history.

  

  Prince Charles
  • World
  • Great
  • Men

• I grew up in Lucknow, which is famous for its street food and kebabs. It was the street food and Lucknowi kebabs that inspired me. The culture of the varieties of food that I tasted as a child inspired me to be a cook.

  

  Ranveer Brar
  • Culture
  • Famous
  • Inspired

• I spent my life studying communism and Soviet systems.

  

  Madeleine Albright
  • Life
  • My Life
  • Communism

• I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture.

  

  Sherman Alexie
  • Culture
  • Storytelling