Quotes from Sherman Alexie

Those Montana Indians were so tough that white people were scared of them. Can you imagine a place where white people are scared of Indians and not the other way around? That's Montana.

He could see his uncles slugging each other with such force that they had to be in love. Strangers would never want to hurt each other that badly.

So I wonder: Will a person who has drowned, Or almost drowned, always feel Like they're drowning, Even after they've been saved?

Or perhaps my friends should have realized that they shouldn't have left behind the FRICKING REASON FOR THEIR PROTEST! And that thought just cracked me up.] It was like my friends had walked over the backs of baby seals in order to get to the beach where they could protest against the slaughter of baby seals.

How do you talk to the real person whose ghost has haunted you? How do you tell the difference between the two?

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

I hoped and prayed that they would someday forgive me for leaving them. I hoped and prayed that I would someday forgive myself for leaving them.

In 2016, white conservatives elected as president a serial liar who is likely the most fearful and paranoid and wildly insecure white man who has ever run for office. And those white folks elected him because they believe they are victims. Yes, I am a Spokane Indian-an indigenous American-who grew up with white folks who think this country is being stolen from them. Hahahahahaahahahahaahahahaahahaha.

But a person can be genocided-can have every connection to his past severed- and live to be an old man whose rib cage is a haunted house built around his heart.

Every book is a mystery. And if you read all the books ever written, it's like you've read one giant mystery. And no matter how much you learn, you just keep on learning there is so much more you need to learn.

The streetlight outside my house shines on tonight and I'm watching it like it could give me a vision. James ain't talked ever and he looks at that streetlight like it was a word and maybe like it was a verb. James wanted to streetlight me and make me bright and beautiful so all the moths and bats would circle me like I was the center of the world an held secrets.

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.

It's a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten the reservations were meant to be death camps.

And then I realized that my sister was trying to LIVE a romance novel. Man, that takes courage and imagination. Well, it also took some degree of mental illness, too, but I was suddenly happy for her. And a little scared. Well, a lot scared.

Well of course man. We Indians have lost everything. We lost our native land, we lost our languages, we lost our songs and dances. We lost each other. We only know how to lose and be lost.

I didn't literally kill Indians. We were supposed to make you give up being Indian. Your songs and stories and language and dancing. Everything. We weren't trying to kill Indian people. We were trying to kill Indian culture.

But I'm also addicted to books. And I know there has never been a human being or a television show, no matter how great, that could measure up to a great book.

But none of them laughed as hard about my beautiful brain as I knew my father would have. I miss him, the drunk bastard. I would always feel closest to the man who had most disappointed me.

Can you hear the dreams crackling like a campfire? Can you hear the dreams sweeping through the pine trees and tipis? Can you hear the dreams laughing in the sawdust? Can you hear the dreams shaking just a little bit as the day grows long? Can you hear the dreams putting on a good jacket that smells of fry bread and sweet smoke? Can you hear the dreams stay up late and talk so many stories?

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 . . .

Years ago, homosexuals were given special status within the tribe. They had powerful medicine. I think it's even more true today, even though our tribe has assimilated into homophobia. I mean, a person has to have magic to assert their identity without regard to all the bullshit, right?

Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.

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

Well, she said, how can I be sure there aren't invisible people in the world? Scientists didn't believe in the mountain gorilla for hundreds of years. And now look. So if scientists can be wrong, then all of us can be wrong. I mean, what if all those invisible people ARE scientists? Think about that one.