Sherman Alexie Quotes - Page 9

My name is Sherman J. Alexie Jr., and I am an insomniac.

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

I look more Indian when I'm serious.

I think most Native American literature is unreadable by the vast majority of Native Americans. Generally speaking Indians don't read books. It's not a book culture. That's why I'm trying to make movies. Indians go to movies; Indians own video recorders.

Indians have no monopoly on environmentalism. That's one of the great myths. But we were subsistence livers. They're two different things. Environmentalism is a conscious choice and subsistence is the absence of choice. We had to use everything to survive. And now that we've been assimilated and colonized and we have luxuries and excesses, we're just as wasteful as other people.

Only in rock music and the literary world you see so many ugly white guys with beautiful women. That says a lot about the women, their character. They're attracted to more than surface.

Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a a skeleton walking one step in front of you. Maybe you don't wear a watch, but your skeletons do, and they always know what time it is.

I learned how to stop crying. I learned how to hide inside of myself. I learned how to be somebody else. I learned how to be cold and numb.

...And nostalgia is a cancer. Nostalgia will fill your heart up with tumors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what you are. You're just an old fart dying of terminal nostalgia.

...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.

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

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

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

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 . . .

She told me that every other step was just for me.' But that's only half of the dance,' I said. Yeah,' my father said. 'She was keeping the rest for herself. Nobody can give everything away. It ain't healthy.

In order to know somebody through their words, I mean, it has to be an, it has to be a letter, you know? It has to be a long e-mail. It has to be a five-page hand-written letter, you know, it has to be overwhelming and messy and sloppy as humans are.

There's this whole notion of being an Indian - the idea that "warrior" is a positive description of us [Indians as native Americans]. When an Indian guy does well, he's a warrior, even now. He could be a computer salesman, but if he does well, he's a warrior. 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.

Sometimes it's called passing out and sometimes it's just pretending to be asleep

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.

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 think I was born with a suitcase.

I am extremely conscious of my tribalism. And when you talk about tribalism, you talk about living in a black and white world. I mean, Native American tribalism sovereignty, even the political fight for sovereignty and cultural sovereignty is a very us versus them. And I think a lot of people in this country, especially European Americans and those descended from Europeans don't see themselves as tribal.

Pain is never added to pain. It multiplies.

I wanted to do a weird book and reestablish my independent, small-press roots.

We can all learn from every text. Reading the work that disgusts you can only strengthen your core beliefs. I could teach a semester-long course based only on reading the local telephone book. All stories can be taught in valuable ways.