Sherman Alexie Quotes
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Is revenge a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle?
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The problem for me with liberals is that we've abdicated our moral responsibility to the universe.
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My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage.
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The problem is that too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make their lives simple, when their emotional lives are just as complicated as ours. They might have a few less tools to deal with it because they're young, but the emotions are all the same, and the subject matter is all the same.
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Estranged from the tribe that gives no protection, What happens to the soul that hates its reflection?
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My father is an amazing man.
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I'm a method writer. In order to write about the emotion, I have to experience it. I get physically tired and exhausted, devoting hours and hours and hours to it.
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We are taught to take the bread into our bodies as proof of Jesus's body.
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At the halfway point of any drunken night, there is a moment when an Indian realizes he cannot turn back toward tradition and that he has no map to guide him toward the future.
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We only know how to lose and be lost.
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My parents banned nothing, though the Christian fundamentalists in my tribe held book-and-record burnings every now and again. So, yes, fundamentalist assholes can also be brown-skinned.
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When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing. And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said goodbye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them. Each funeral was a funeral for all of us. We lived and died together. All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground. And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt. And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses.
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He looked into the crowd for approval, saw his mother and father. He waved and they waved back. Smiles and Indian teeth. They were both drunk. Everything familiar and welcome. Everything beautiful.
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We can all learn from every text. Reading the work that disgusts you can only strengthen your core beliefs. I could teach a semester-long course based only on reading the local telephone book. All stories can be taught in valuable ways.
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What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment.
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You want the good life? You live where white people live, you go to school where white people go to school, and you shop where white people shop.
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Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.
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I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture.
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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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That's one more thing people don't know about Indians: We love to talk dirty.
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Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It's one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they're the four hugest words in the world when they're put together. You can do it.
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My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room.
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All art is exploitation.
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I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don't write to protect them. It's far too late for that. I write to give them weapons-in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.