Sherman Alexie Quotes

Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito.

If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.

If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything.

What kind of life can you have in a house without books?

Don't live up to your stereotypes.

When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.

If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads.

Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.

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.

If you're good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can't be wrong.

The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know.

He made me realize that hard work--that the act of finishing, of completing, of accomplishing a task--is joyous

My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures.

I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture.

Books and beer are the best and worst defense.

I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.

We all know the Indians were colonized by the Europeans, but every colonized Indian has been colonized by the Indian reaction to colonization.

You have to love somebody that much to also hate them that much, too. (191)

Nervous means you want to play. Scared means you don't want to play.

Every movie is a road movie. Every novel is a mystery. Every tortilla chip is sacred.

If one reads enough books, one has a fighting chance.

Since Jesus was human then he most assuredly farted and burped. And if God did create us in God's image then God must fart and burp as well.

If I wasn't writing poems I'd be washing my hands all the time.

If it's fiction, then it better be true.

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.

Read. Read 1000 pages for every 1 page that you write.

[F]rank knew he was guilty of arrogance and misanthropy, but he compensated by being kind to strangers and tipping really well at restaurants.

It was so quiet, a reservation kind of quiet, where you can hear somebody drinking whiskey on the rocks three miles away.

I'm quite aware of my differences. I wouldn't classify them as weird

Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.

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.

That's the whole point of life, you know? To meet new people.

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.

I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.

The ordinary can be like medicine.

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.

You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it.

If you care about something enough, it’s going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear. Get mad. Arnold, get mad.

The dream he needed most was the dream that frightened him more.

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.

When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author.

All art is exploitation.

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!

Most of my heroes are just decent people. Decency is rare and underrated.

If a parent doesn't want his/her child to read a book then there is always an alternative text to read. But the book banners want to control what every child reads.

When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.

There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away. (107)

Writing is a lonely business.