Sherman Alexie Quotes
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My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.
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Like officer Dave.He's never said much about his life, but I can tell he's scarred. And he knows I'm scarred too. The wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other.
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Unlike landed white men, she didn't need to climb mountains to experience mystic panic. All she needed was to set her alarm dock for the next morning, wake when it rang, and go to class.
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"I used to think the world was broken down by tribes," I said. "By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not."
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I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser. Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent.
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Sixty percent of all Indians live in urban areas, but nobody's writing about them. They're really an underrepresented population, and the ironic thing is very, very few of those we call Native American writers actually grew up on reservations, and yet most of their work is about reservations.
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I remember when people used to think I was smart. I remember when people used to think my brain was useful. Damaged by water, sure. And ready to seizure at any moment. But still useful, and maybe even a little bit beautiful and sacred and magical.
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I was studying the sky like I was an astronomer, except it was daytime and I didn't have a telescope, so I was just an idiot.
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Religious fundamentalists are unaware that freedom of religion necessarily brings with it the freedom to mock religion.
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And then I realized that my sister was trying to LIVE a romance novel. Man, that takes courage and imagination. Well, it also took some degree of mental illness, too, but I was suddenly happy for her. And a little scared. Well, a lot scared.
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it's way too early for him to be talking anyhow but I see in his eyes something and I see in his eyes a voice and I see in his eyes a whole new set of words
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You can't sustain anger. You become bitter. Nothing's going to change. Anger leads to resentment, then to spiking your orange juice, then to martyrdom.
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Ialways think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during the first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians. So I'm never quite sure why we eat Turkey like everybody else.
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Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito.
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It's a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten the reservations were meant to be death camps.
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What's the difference between bulimics and anorexics?" I ask. "Anorexics are anorexics all the time," she says, "I'm only bulimic when I'm throwing up." Wow. She sounds just like my dad! "I'm only an alcoholic when I get drunk." There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away. Penelope gorges on her pain and then throws it up and flushes it away. My dad drinks his pain away.
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Sometimes it's called passing out and sometimes it's just pretending to be asleep
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She wanted to be buried in a coffin filled with used paperbacks.
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I've come to the point in my life where I encourage young Native Americans to become much more selfish about their personal needs and wants.
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The percentage of Indian kids doing some sort of artistic work is much higher than in the general population - painting, drawing, dancing, singing. The creation of art is still an everyday part of Indian culture, unlike the dominant culture, where art is sort of peripheral.
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If I were a doctor nobody would be inviting me to talk to reservations. I'd be a different person. Writers can influence more people.
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Seems like the cold would never go away and winter would be like the bottom of my feet but then it is gone in one night and in its place comes the sun so large and laughable.
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When you're depressed, you know, it's like the world has ended. Even getting out of bed takes the most massive amount of effort. But when you're manic, oh, it's so addicting. You know, I have finished novels in two weeks in manic stages.
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I don't know what any individual should do about crossing her own borders. I only know that I live a happier, more adventurous life, by crossing borders.