Sherman Alexie Quotes

Office Peone looked at John and wondered what mental illness he had. The Seattle streets were filled with the mostly-crazy, half-crazy, nearly crazy, and soon-to-be crazy. Indian, white, Chicano, Asian, men, women, children. The social workers did not have anywhere near enough money, training, or time to help them. The city government hated the crazies because they were a threat to the public image of the urban core. Private citizens ignored them at all times of the year except the few charitable days leading up to and following Christmas. In the end, the police had to do most of the work. Police did crisis counseling, transporting them howling to detox, the dangerous to jail, racing the sick to the hospitals, to a safer place. At the academy, Officer Peone figured he would be fighting bad guys. He did not imagine he would spend most of his time taking care of the refuse of the world. Peone found it easier when the refuse were all nuts or dumb-ass drunks, harder when they were just regular folks struggling to find their way off the streets.

~ Sherman Alexie

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.

~ Sherman Alexie

My sister is running away to get lost, but I am running away because I want to find something. And my parents love me so much that they want to help me. Yeah, Dad is a drunk and Mom is an ex-drunk, but they don't want their kids to be drunks.

~ Sherman Alexie

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.

~ Sherman Alexie

So I guess you were hopelessly romantic and easily distracted, a B-plus mother, certainly good enough to get into Matriarchal State University but not quite good enough for St. Mary's College of the Blessed Womb Warriors.

~ Sherman Alexie

Like officer Dave.He's never said much about his life, but I can tell he's scarred. And he knows I'm scarred too. The wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other.

~ Sherman Alexie

Junior based all of his decisions on his dreams and visions, which created a lot of problems.

~ Sherman Alexie

Well, in the early days of humans, the community was our only protection against predators, and against the starvation. We survived because we trusted one another.

~ Sherman Alexie

More and more, he heard his spine playing stick games through his skin, singing old dusty words, the words of all his years.

~ Sherman Alexie

Mick had once come across one of Wilson't books and was surprised to see his face on the back cover. Mick was even more surprised when he read the book. It was pretty good, although Mick was kind of tired of hearing about Indians. Still, Mick thought, Aristotle Little Hawk was a good Indian, even if he was just some character in a book. He wished more Indians like Little Hawk hung out in the bar. He knew Wilson claimed he had some Indian blood, said so inside the book. But Mick did not buy that shit. Mick's great-grandmother was a little bit Indian, but that did not make him Indian. Besides, who the hell would want to be Indian when you could just as easily be white?

~ Sherman Alexie

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.

~ Sherman Alexie

...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.

~ Sherman Alexie

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!

~ Sherman Alexie

I'm dying from about ninety-nine kinds of shame

~ Sherman Alexie

I didn’t yet know that romantic heroes—famous and not—are usually aimless nomads in disguise.

~ Sherman Alexie

Because I want to be remembered.

~ Sherman Alexie

He was my best friend and I needed him.

~ Sherman Alexie

All of these white kids and teachers, who were so suspicious of me when I first arrived, had learned to care about me. Maybe some of them even loved me. And I'd been so suspicious of them. And now I care about a lot of them. And loved a few of them.

~ Sherman Alexie

When my female friends are leftBy horrid spouses and lovers,I commiserate. I send gifts-Powwow songs and poems- and wonderWhy my gorgeous friends cannot findSomeone who knows them as I do.Is the whole world dead and blind?I tell my friends, “I’d marry youTomorrow.” I think I’m engagedTo thirty-six women, my harem:Platonic, bookish, and enraged.I love them! But it would scare them-No, of course, they already knowThat I can be just one more boy,A toy warrior who explodesInto silence and warpaths with joy.

~ Sherman Alexie

Gordie, the white boy genius, gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians, and he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the frikkin' booze.

~ Sherman Alexie

Like the coffin was settling down for a long, long nap, for a forever nap.

~ Sherman Alexie

So I draw because I feel like it might be my only real chance to escape the reservation.

~ Sherman Alexie

But how can I get enough experience if they don't give me a chance to get experience?

~ Sherman Alexie

But despite the fact that Reardan is a tiny town, people can still be strangers to each other.

~ Sherman Alexie

Lies have short shelf lives. Lies go bad. Lies rot and stink up the joint.

~ Sherman Alexie

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.

~ Sherman Alexie

But my grandmother wanted us to forgive her murderer.

~ Sherman Alexie

I can't remember how to cry.

~ Sherman Alexie

Writing is a lonely business.

~ Sherman Alexie

I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture.

~ Sherman Alexie

My father was sleepless most of his life. So by the age of five, I was awake with him all night long, watching bad television or we'd lie in the same bed, and I'd read my comic books while he read his latest spy or mystery novel.

~ Sherman Alexie

My father is an amazing man.

~ Sherman Alexie

When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author.

~ Sherman Alexie

I'm a method writer. In order to write about the emotion, I have to experience it. I get physically tired and exhausted, devoting hours and hours and hours to it.

~ Sherman Alexie

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.

~ Sherman Alexie

You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it.

~ Sherman Alexie

In high school I dated a white woman. She would come to visit me on the rez. And her dad, who was very racist, didn't like that at all. And he told her one time, 'You shouldn't go on the rez if you're white because Indians have a lot of anger in their heart.'

~ Sherman Alexie

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

~ Sherman Alexie