Quotes By Sherman Alexie

Writing is a lonely business.

I look more Indian when I'm serious.

I've come to the point in my life where I encourage young Native Americans to become much more selfish about their personal needs and wants.

I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.

You'd never know it from reading the rest of the Native writers, but Indians actually grew up with American pop culture.

I felt so conflicted about having fled the rez as a kid that I created a whole literary career that left me there.

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.

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

Don't live up to your stereotypes.

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.

If I wasn't writing poems I'd be washing my hands all the time.

I don't know what any individual should do about crossing her own borders. I only know that I live a happier, more adventurous life, by crossing borders.

White Americans have a short memory.

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.'

When you construct a mix tape, the first song you come out with has to be a barnburner.

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

The problem is that too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make their lives simple, when their emotional lives are just as complicated as ours. They might have a few less tools to deal with it because they're young, but the emotions are all the same, and the subject matter is all the same.

We all know the Indians were colonized by the Europeans, but every colonized Indian has been colonized by the Indian reaction to colonization.

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

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.