Quotes from Sherman Alexie

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

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

I cannot defeat cancer. Nobody defeats cancer. There is no winning or losing. There is no surviving or not surviving. There are only coin flips: heads or tails; benign or malignant; weight loss or bloating; morphine or oxycodone; extreme rescue efforts or Do Not Resuscitate; live or die.

Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions.

I keep writing and rewriting, drawing and redrawing, and rethinking and revising and reediting. It became my grieving ceremony.

Instead, I woke early the next morning, before sunrise, and went out into the world. I walked past my car. I stepped onto the pavement, still warm from the previous day's sun. I started walking. In bare feet, I traveled upriver toward the place where I was born and will someday die. At that moment, if you had broken open my heart you could have looked inside and seen the thin white skeletons of one thousand salmon.

it's like this white-Indian thing has gotten out of control. And the thing with the blacks and the Mexicans. Everybody blaming everybody...I don't know what happened. I can't explain it all. Just look around at the world. Look at this country. Things just aren't like they used to be.' 'Son, things have never been like what you think they used to be.

In the indigenous world, we assign sacred value to circles. But sometimes a circle just means you keep returning to the same shit again and again. This book is a series of circles, sacred and profane.

So we must forgive all those Who trespass against us? Fuck that shit. I'm not some charitable trust. There are people I will hate Even after I'm ashes and dust.

I would guess, perhaps too optimistically, that nearly ever racist believes it is morally wrong to be racist. And since nearly every person thinks of themselves as being moral, then a racist must consciously and subconsciously employ tortured logic in order to explain away their racism--in order to believe themselves to be nonracist.

And he only talks about his dreams with me. And I only talk about my dreams with him.

Gay people were seen as magical, too. I mean, like in many cultures, men were viewed as warriors and women were viewed as caregivers. But gay people, being both male and female, were seen as both warriors and caregivers. Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss Army knives!

My parents came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people.

Thing is, I don't believe in ghosts. But I see them all the time.

Of course, ever since white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity, Indians have gradually lost all of their tolerance.

You wouldn't think there is anything life threatening about speech impediments, but let me tell you, there is nothing more dangerous than being a kid with a stutter and a lisp.

I think Rowdy might be the most important person in my life. maybe more important than my family.) Can your best friend be more importamt than your family?

Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didn't pay well at all.

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

I don't think you should run through life with a real erect penis. But you should approach each book - you should approach life - with the real possibility that you might get a metaphorical boner at any point.

I was young and frightened and craved respect and its ugly cousin, approval, so I did as I was told.

Held on to me like I was a baby. And she kept crying. So many tears. My clothes and hair were soaked with her tears. It was, like, my mother had given me a grief shower, you know? Like she'd baptized me with her pain.

That's one more thing people don't know about Indians: We love to talk dirty.

A bullet only costs about two cents, and anybody can afford that.