Sherman Alexie Quotes

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.

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

"I knew — because of my race, and my class, and rural geography ... all these forces that crush all sorts of American kids, crush their hopes and dreams — I knew I had no chance unless I left and went to a better school.”

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!

My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room…You always knew they were coming: he was never violent, but short-tempered. It wasn't a violent house, but a violent reservation.

My 2017 is gonna be white liberals shocked about white racism & white conservatives denying white racism exists. Just like every other year.

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!

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

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!

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.

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'.

It was arrogance…I had the feeling I was going to be successful, and I didn't want to be another disappointing Indian. The mess my father was, it broke my heart. I didn't want to break an Indian kid's heart.

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

…It wasn't just the influence of tribal cultures, it was the assimilation into fundamentalist Christianity, which is even more warrior culture, even more honor culture, and even more suspicious of difference. So I was getting bombarded not only by the more fundamentalist aspects of my tribe, but the more fundamentalist aspects of our assimilation into Christianity. So that was going on all around us, and, in fact, in second grade we had this ex-nun teacher who put us into stress positions as torture.

[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!