Sherman Alexie quotes - page 5

All I owe the world is my art. (Sherman Alexie)
My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room. View quote
Sherman Alexie
White Americans have a short memory. View quote
Sherman Alexie
The form I most enjoy writing is the sonnet or sonnet-like forms, where you have a - you know, three stanzas or two stanzas that lead into a concluding couplet. View quote
Sherman Alexie
Spiritual matters should be private. View quote
Sherman Alexie
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. View quote
Sherman Alexie
I look more Indian when I'm serious. View quote
Sherman Alexie
In a real-world way, my gifts are very limited in terms of what I can do. View quote
Sherman Alexie
When you construct a mix tape, the first song you come out with has to be a barnburner. View quote
Sherman Alexie
All art is exploitation. View quote
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)
My career means, if you're a non-Indian writing about Indians, at least there's one Indian in your rearview mirror. View quote
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. View quote
Sherman Alexie
There have been players with Indian heritage, but there hasn't been a Native-American professional basketball player who became a regular for all sorts of social and political reasons. View quote
Sherman Alexie
I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture. View quote
Sherman Alexie
There isn't a lot of poverty literature in the young-adult world. And I don't know why that is, but I think certainly I felt a gap. View quote
Sherman Alexie
Certainly I'm angry at the way Indians have been treated and continue to be treated. But I don't think it's a helpless emotion. View quote
Sherman Alexie
Writing is a lonely business. View quote
Sherman Alexie
These are things you should learn. Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you; your future is 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. Now, these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices. And they can trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming. But they're not necessarily evil, unless you let them be. View quote
Sherman Alexie
Funny how a little politeness can change people's minds. View quote
Sherman Alexie
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. (Sherman Alexie)
I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture. View quote
Sherman Alexie
Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they're not here and haven't been for years, so I'm not really Irish or Indian. I am a blank sky, a human solar eclipse. View quote
Sherman Alexie
In the middle of the night, when you're ambiguously ethnic, like me, when you're brown, beige, mauve, siena, one of those lighter browns in the Crayola box. You have to be careful of the cops and robbers, because nobody's quite sure what you are, but everybody has assumptions. View quote
Sherman Alexie
Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito. View quote
Sherman Alexie