Sherman Alexie quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Sherman Alexie on Wise Famous Quotes.

What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment.

At what point do we just re-create the people who have disappeared from our lives?

We lived in a small house, so there was no escape from the goddamn racket of her loneliness.

All I owe the world is my art

All art is exploitation.

The professor ignored Lynn's comments and proceeded with his lecture.

I had the feeling I was going to be successful, and I didn't want to be another disappointing Indian.

Mary was a bright and shining star," Mr. P said. "And then she faded year by year until you could barely see her anymore.

We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we've been lied to.

I thought I'd been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing young adult literature.

magical realism? Aren't we all making shit up,

Junior based all of his decisions on his dreams and visions, which created a lot of problems.

I would steal horses
for you, if there were any left

Exoticism was hard to find in Pullman, Washington.

We order Diet since my father and I are both diabetic. Genetics, you know?

Swore he told us not to slow dance with our skeletons.

Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.

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.

I think I was born with a suitcase.

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

Writing is a lonely business.

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

Our love will be loud, and it will be bright.

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

Walked back into the house to feed myself and my illusions.

But how can I get enough experience if they don't give me a chance to get experience?

If Heaven ain't filled with gender-swapping Indians," I said, "then I don't want to go there.

For the rest of our lives, all we can hear are our names chanted over and over, until we are deaf to everything else.

Funny how a little politeness can change people's minds.

The earth is our grandmother and that technology has become our mother and that they both hate each other.

When a glass sits on a table here, people don't wonder if it's half filled or half empty. They just hope it's good beer.

Pain is never added to pain. It multiplies.

boys can hold hands until they turn nine

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

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

I ain't interested in the truth. I'm interested in the way things should be.

I've learned that the worst thing a parent can do is ignore their children.

That's how it was." "How do you kill somebody accidentally?"

I was a controversial figure on my reservation when I was a kid. I was mouthy and opinionated and arrogant. Nothing has changed.

I want to rasp into sober cryptology and say something dynamic, but tonight is my laundry night.

How does one survive these revelations? One just lives.

I feel like a carton of eggs holding up an elephant.

We didn't talk. Didn't need to talk.

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

Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.

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

One play can change your momentum forever.

She'd teach him nineteen different ways to spell matriarchy.

If God were good, why would he create Rush Limbaugh?

He doesn't hurt you because you're the only good thing in his life. He doesn't want to give that up. It's the only thing he hasn't given up.

He was my best friend and I needed him.

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.

I'm not a pacifist by any measure, but I'm also fully aware that the reasons I might go to war could be very dubious.

I can't remember how to cry.

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

one ponders. And when one ponders, one creates theories - hypotheses, to explain the world.

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

There is a good day to die and there is a good day to play the piano.

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

Surrounded by five hundred years of convenient lies.

If you weren't good for making food, shelter, or babies, then you were tossed out on your own.

It's not oil that runs the world, it's shame.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's about how you play the game.

But the real interesting stuff is in the cellar and the attic.

When you construct a mix tape, the first song you come out with has to be a barnburner.

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

And if God hadn't wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn't have given us thumbs. So I thank God for my thumbs.

And I laughed because half of me was happy and half of me wasn't sure what else to do.

Let us now celebrate the literary allusion.

Poetry = Anger x Imagination

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.

I mean, you have to love somebody that much to also hate them that much, too

Like a good Indian, he knew when to talk and when to remain silent. Like a good Indian, he knew there was never a good time to talk.

He likes to pretend he lives inside the comic books. I guess a fake life inside a cartoon is a lot better than his real life.

I didn't know what to do or say, so I just sat as quietly as he did. The silence got so big and real that it felt like three people sat on the porch.

We're all travelling heavy with illusions.

I'm a poet who can whine in meter

my nose bled like a firework

Sharing dark skin doesn't necessarily make two men brothers

There isn't a lot of poverty literature in the young-adult world. And I don't know why that is, but I think certainly I felt a gap.

Like the coffin was settling down for a long, long nap, for a forever nap.

I often wonder why I am the one who remember all the pain?

So I draw because I want to talk to the world. And I want the world to pay attention to me.

There were all sorts of myths and legends surrounding the lake. I mean, we're Indians, and we like to make up shit about lakes, you know?

Love and death," my father said. "It's all love and death.

He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could.

But people forget.

Don't live up to your stereotypes.

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

I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.

And then she asks me how many sexual partners I've had and I say one or two
depending on your definition of what I did to Custer ...

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

I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.

I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture.

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.

I wasn't just defending myself. I was defending Indians, black people, and buffalo.

We only know how to lose and be lost.

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

I knew I was being an idiot. But I figured if I kept being an idiot, if I didn't actually accept the truth, then the truth would become false.

In this world, we must love the liars or go unloved