Quotes from Sherman Alexie

Nobody knew the truth. Of course, you can't lie forever. Lies have short shelf lives. Lies go bad.

I used to think the world was broken down by tribes," I said. "By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not.

It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.

Can a book rightfully be called a book if it never gets read? If a tree falls in a forest and gets pulped to make paper for a book that never gets read, but there's nobody to read it, does it make a sound?

If a poet falls in a forest, and there's nobody there to hear him, does he make a metaphor or simile?

She thought she could be saved. She thought he could take her hand and owldance her around the circle. She thought she could watch him fancydance, watch his calf muscles grow more and more perfect with each step. She thought he was Crazy Horse.

Tr?i ?, bà nói. Ai quan tâm n?u má»™t ng??i Ä'àn ông mu?n l?y má»™t ng??i Ä'àn ông khác? Bà ch? mu?n bi?t là ai s? Ä'i nh?t ??ng t?t b?n thôi? ------------------------------------- Trích Nh?t ký hoàn toàn có th?t c?a má»™t ng??i Anh ?iêng bán th?i gian

On a reservation, Indian men who abandon their children are treated worse than white fathers who do the same thing. It's because white men have been doing that forever and Indian men have just learned how. That's how assimilation can work.

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

U?ng r??u s? Ä'óng l?i t?m nhìn, kh? n?ng nghe và c?m xúc c?a bà, bà v?n hay nói v?y. T?i sao bà l?i mu?n s?ng ? trên ??i này n?u không th? ch?m vào th? giá»›i b?ng t?t c? các giác quan còn nguyên v?n c?a bà?.

he said. "It's not your fault." "I shouldn't have played you. I should have canceled the whole game. It's my fault." "I wanted to play. I wanted to win." "It's just a game," he said. "It's not worth all this.

I draw because words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture, everybody can understand it.

I was successful and acceptable and loved because I was—and still am—great at negotiating with whiteness. But that means my white friends often mistakenly believe that my ability to successfully negotiate the white world means that I am white—or more white than Native. My white friends can mistakenly believe that my intellectual and artistic abilities are intrinsically white.

Hey, Dad," I said. "What do Indians have to be so thankful for?" "We should give thanks that they didn't kill all of us." We laughed like crazy.

The people at home," I said. "A lot of them call me an apple." "Do they think you're a fruit or something?" he asked. "No, no," I said. "They call me an apple because they think I'm red on the outside and white on the inside." "Ah, so they think you're a traitor

What greater grief than the loss of one's native land?

The reservation doesn't sing anymore but the songs still hang in the air. Every molecule waits for a drumbeat; every element dreams lyrics. Today I am walking between water, two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, and the energy expelled is named Forgiveness.

The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not." I

I would close my eyes and dream of something strong, dream of horses exploding, rising into the air, their hearts beating survive, survive, survive.

It's not like anybody's going to notice if you go away," he said. "So you might as well gut it out." Isn't

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

Then she tells me that Jesus is still here because Jesus was once here. And parts of Jesus are still floating in the air. She tells me Jesus' DNA is part of the collective DNA. She tells we are all part of Jesus, we are all Jesus in part. She tells me to breathe deep during all our storms because you can sometimes taste Jesus in a good, hard rain.

Seymour looked around the Tucson McDonald's. There were white people and Mavajos; there were people who preferred their Quarter Pounders with cheese and those who didn't care for cheese at all; and there were those who desperately wish that McDonald's would introduce onion rings to its menu.

If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it.