Sherman Alexie Quotes
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Nobody recognizes that a bookstore or library can also be a drowning polar bear. And in this country US, magazines, newspapers, and bookstores are drowning polar bears. And if people can't see that or don't want to talk about it, I don't understand them at all.
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When are we left-wingers going to learn that we are losing the cultural and political battle with conservatives because we are fractured into narcissistic special-interest groups? Why should an antiwar protestor be so concerned about her dietary identity? The political opinions of vegetarians and meat-eaters are, after all, equally important. And what does it tell us about vegetarians that it would never occur to meat-eaters to carry a sign that reads "Pacifist Pork Chop Lover for Peace" or "Backyard Rib Barbecuer for International Nuclear Disarmament"?
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Well, as a native, as a colonized people you do live in the in between. The thing is I'm native. But necessarily because I'm a member of the country, I'm also a White American.
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Most of my heroes are just decent people. Decency is rare and underrated.
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Let us now celebrate the literary allusion.
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I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.
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The streetlight outside my house shines on tonight and I'm watching it like it could give me a vision. James ain't talked ever and he looks at that streetlight like it was a word and maybe like it was a verb. James wanted to streetlight me and make me bright and beautiful so all the moths and bats would circle me like I was the center of the world an held secrets.
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All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.
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There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.
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My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures.
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Corliss had never once considered the fate of library books. She'd never wondered how many books go unread. She loved books. How could she not worry about the unread? She felt like a disorganized scholar, an inconsiderate lover, an abusive mother, and a cowardly soldier.
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Well, I think the worst part about tribalism is its tendency to fundamentalize, and if I can fight fundamentalism in any of its forms I'm happy.
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I got hundreds of emails insulting me, accusing me of being some caveman. I am by no means a Luddite. I have two iPods. I have a cell phone. I have cable TV, HDTV!
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I learned how to stop crying. I learned how to hide inside of myself. I learned how to be somebody else. I learned how to be cold and numb.
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And I couldn't make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either. We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly.
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And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.
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I had the feeling I was going to be successful, and I didn't want to be another disappointing Indian.
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My father was a basketball player, so I loved basketball because he did. It was a direct transference. But, more than that, basketball, in the United States at least, plays the same function that soccer does everyone else in the world. It's the sport of poverty. It's the sport born of poverty. It's the cheapest sport.
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Certainly I'm angry at the way Indians have been treated and continue to be treated. But I don't think it's a helpless emotion.
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I am extremely conscious of my tribalism. And when you talk about tribalism, you talk about living in a black and white world. I mean, Native American tribalism sovereignty, even the political fight for sovereignty and cultural sovereignty is a very us versus them. And I think a lot of people in this country, especially European Americans and those descended from Europeans don't see themselves as tribal.
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Imagination is the politics of dreams; imagination turns every word into a bottle rocket. . . . Imagine every day is Independence Day and save us from traveling the river changed; save us from hitchhiking the long road home. Imagine an escape. Imagine that your own shadow on the wall is a perfect door. Imagine a song stronger than penicillin. Imagine a spring with water that mends broken bones. Imagine a drum which wraps itself around your heart. Imagine a story that puts wood in the fireplace.
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I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.
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The people who loved me when I was seven years old love my books, and the people who didn't like me when I was seven years old don't like my books.
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He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.