Sherman Alexie Quotes

Sherman Alexie delivers sharp, witty takes on everyday life, humor and cultural tension.

39 quotes

1. 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.

2. Thomas: Hey Victor! I'm sorry 'bout your dad. Victor: How'd you hear about it? Thomas: I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. And your mom was just in here cryin'.

3. Victor: Get Stoic.

4. Thomas: Sometimes it's a good day to die, and sometimes it's a good day to have breakfast.

5. Nurse: You guys are like the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Thomas: We're more like Tonto and Tonto.

6. Victor: White people won't respect you if you don't look mean. You have to look like a warrior, like you just got back from killing a buffalo. Thomas: But our tribe never hunted buffalo. We were fishermen. Victor: What, you want to look like you just caught a fish? This isn't Dances with Salmon, you know!

7. Randy Peone: It's a good day to be indigenous!

8. He hated to leave, but he loved his work. He was a man, and men needed to work. More sexism! More masculine tunnel vision! More need for gender-sensitivity workshops!

9. He wondered if she would dream about a man who never left her, about some unemployed agoraphobic Indian warrior who liked to wash dishes.

10. I don't want long hair, I don't want short hair, I don't want hair at all, and I don't want to be a girl or a boy, I want to be a yellow-orange leaf some little kid picks up and pastes in his scrapbook.

11. [Flying into Baltimore after 9/11] I didn't want to see some pacifist, vegan, whole-wheat, free-range, organic, progressive, gray-ponytail, communist, liberal, draft-dodging, NPR-listening wimp! What are they going to do if somebody tries to hijack the plane? Throw a Birkenstock at him? Offer him some pot?...I was hoping for about twenty-five NRA-loving, gun-nut, serial-killing, psychopathic, Ollie North, Norman Schwarzkopf, right-wing, Agent Orange, post-traumatic-stress-disorder, CIA, FBI, automatic-weapon, smart-bomb, laser-sighting bastards!

12. Oh, I'm sorry, sir, if I offended you. I am not anti-Semitic. I love all of my brothers and sisters. Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, even the atheists, I love them all. Like you Americans sing, 'Joy to the world and Jeremiah Bullfrog!

13. William always scanned the airports and airplanes for little brown guys who reeked of fundamentalism. That meant William was equally afraid of Osama bin Laden and Jerry Falwell wearing the last vestiges of a summer tan. William himself was a little brown guy, so the other travelers were always sniffing around him, but he smelled only of Dove soap, Mennen deoderant, and sarcasm.

14. Since Jesus was human then he most assuredly farted and burped. And if God did create us in God's image then God must fart and burp as well.

15. I don't think there's a whole lot of class literature at all. I think most of that has become racially based, and people don't think of it as being class literature.

16. She wanted to be buried in a coffin filled with used paperbacks.

17. My parents banned nothing, though the Christian fundamentalists in my tribe held book-and-record burnings every now and again. So, yes, fundamentalist assholes can also be brown-skinned.

18. I think that white women are more apt to read laterally. So I think there's some strong identification for women, and their political and social positions, and minorities. I think that the political power of, let's say, the average Indian man and a white woman are pretty equal.

19. When you're depressed, you know, it's like the world has ended. Even getting out of bed takes the most massive amount of effort. But when you're manic, oh, it's so addicting. You know, I have finished novels in two weeks in manic stages.

20. 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.

21. If a parent doesn't want his/her child to read a book then there is always an alternative text to read. But the book banners want to control what every child reads.

22. I remember when people used to think I was smart. I remember when people used to think my brain was useful. Damaged by water, sure. And ready to seizure at any moment. But still useful, and maybe even a little bit beautiful and sacred and magical.

23. I drew because words were too unpredictable. (5)

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

25. Most of my heroes are just decent people. Decency is rare and underrated.

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

27. When anybody, no matter how old they are, loses a parent, I think it hurts the same as if you were only five years old, you know? I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.

28. Corliss wondered what happens to a book that sits unread on a library shelf for thirty years. 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 there to read it, does it make a sound?

29. I write less about alcohol, less and less and less. You 're an addict - so of course you write about the thing you love most. I loved alcohol the most, loved it more than anybody or anything. That's what I wrote about. And it certainly accounted for some great writing. But it accounted for two or three years of good writing - it would never account for 20 years of good writing. I would have turned into Charles Bukowski. He wrote 10,000 poems and 10 of them were great.

30. 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.

31. Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It's one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they're the four hugest words in the world when they're put together. You can do it.

32. Estranged from the tribe that gives no protection, What happens to the soul that hates its reflection?

33. Nostalgia is always doomed and dooming.

34. I love to scare the already terrified assholes.

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

36. My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room.

37. 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.

38. When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.

39. That's the whole point of life, you know? To meet new people.