Sherman Alexie Quotes
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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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My books for adults had been previously challenged and banned so I'd had experience with it. I always find it sad and amusing: Sad to think that such archaic and potentially dangerous censorious beliefs still exist, and amused because these censors only make a book more powerful and seductive when trying to ban it.
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I didn't know what to say to her. What do you say to people when they ask how it feels to lose everything? When every planet in your solar system has exploded?
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A lot of native culture has been destroyed. So you already feel lost inside your culture. And then you add up feeling lost and insignificant inside the larger culture. So you end up feeling lost squared. And to never be recognized, to never have any power, you know, other minority communities actually have a lot of economic, cultural power.
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I drew because words were too unpredictable.
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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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Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.
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He wanted the songs, the stories, to save everybody.
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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.
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If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads.
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Is revenge a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle?
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If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything.
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The dream he needed most was the dream that frightened him more.
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I ain't interested in the truth. I'm interested in the way things should be.
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How self-centered, how arrogant... Imagine the awesome privilege of living in a society where you get to choose what you eat at each and every meal. When I was a kid, I was a vegetarian and a vegan for long stretches... I was a commodity cheese-atarian.
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If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.
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Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.
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If it's fiction, then it better be true.
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When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.
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Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions.
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In high school I dated a white woman. She would come to visit me on the rez. And her dad, who was very racist, didn't like that at all. And he told her one time, 'You shouldn't go on the rez if you're white because Indians have a lot of anger in their heart.'
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White Americans have a short memory.
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We all have to find our own ways to say good-bye.
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All art is exploitation.