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Sherman Alexie Quotes

Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. is a Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-American novelist, short story writer, poet, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.His best-known book is The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven , a collection of short stories. It was adapted as the film Smoke Signals , for which he also wrote the screenplay.

His first novel, Reservation Blues, received a 1996 American Book Award.

His first young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian , is a semi-autobiographical novel that won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Odyssey Award as best 2008 audiobook for young people . His 2009 collection of short stories and poems, War Dances, won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.Alexie is the guest editor of the 2015 Best American Poetry. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. October 1966  •  Other names شرمن الکسی, شيرمان أليكسي
Sherman Alexie photo

Works

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Flight
Flight
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie: 82 quotes5 likes

Famous Sherman Alexie Quotes

“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 book Flight

Source: Flight

“Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a 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.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

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

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

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

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Sherman Alexie Quotes about books

“My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Books and beer are the best and worst defense.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“I suddenly understood that if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of a life should be taken seriously as well.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“What kind of life can you have in a house without books?”

Sherman Alexie book Flight

Source: Flight

Sherman Alexie Quotes about the world

“I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,' I said. 'By Black and White. By Indian and White. But I know this isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know.

If you care about something enough, it's going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear. Get mad.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Drinking would shut down my seeing and my hearing and my feeling,' she used to say. 'Why would I want to be in the world if I couldn't touch the world with all of my senses intact?”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“The world is divided by two different tribes. The people who are assholes and the people who are not.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Sherman Alexie: Trending quotes

“If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.”

Sherman Alexie

Source: The Toughest Indian in the World

“I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser. Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Sherman Alexie Quotes

“If you're good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can't be wrong.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“We all have to find our own ways to say good-bye.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away. (107)”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“If you care about something enough, it’s going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear. Get mad. Arnold, get mad.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads.”

Sherman Alexie

“I was studying the sky like I was an astronomer, except it was daytime and I didn't have a telescope, so I was just an idiot.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Nervous means you want to play. Scared means you don't want to play.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

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

Sherman Alexie

Source: Ten Little Indians

“If it's fiction, then it better be true.”

Sherman Alexie

Source: The Toughest Indian in the World

“I've learned that the worst thing a parent can do is ignore their children”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“You have to love somebody that much to also hate them that much, too.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Read. Read 1000 pages for every 1 page that you write.”

Sherman Alexie

“Coach said. "the quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor".”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and for education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads.”

Sherman Alexie

“I didn't know what to say to her. What do you say to people when they ask how it feels to lose everything? When every planet in your solar system has exploded?”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“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.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.”

Sherman Alexie

Source: The Toughest Indian in the World

“Grief is when you feel so helpless and stupid that you think nothing will ever be right again, and your macaroni and cheese tastes like sawdust, and you can't even jerk off because it seems like too much trouble.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“I used to sleep with my books in piles all over my bed and sometimes they were the only thing keeping me warm and always the only thing keeping me alive. Books are the best and worst defense.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“You should approach each book -- you should approach life -- with the real possibility that you might get a metaphorical boner at any point.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“I feel like a carton of eggs holding up an elephant.”

Sherman Alexie

“We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we've been lied to.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“She was in pain and I loved her, sort of loved her, I guess, so I kind of had to love her pain, too.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“… there are some children who aren't really children at all, they're just pillars of flame that burn everything they touch. And there are some children who are just pillars of ash, that fall apart when you touch them…”

Sherman Alexie

Source: Smoke Signals: A Screenplay

“Somebody dies and people eat your food. Funny how that works.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“He made me realize that hard work--that the act of finishing, of completing, of accomplishing a task--is joyous”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“At the halfway point of any drunken night, there is a moment when an Indian realizes he cannot turn back toward tradition and that he has no map to guide him toward the future.”

Sherman Alexie

“I'm a poet who can whine in meter”

Sherman Alexie

“And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“In the middle of a crazy and drunk life, you have to hang onto the good and sober moments tightly.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“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.”

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

Source: Ten Little Indians

“Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he'd never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. (189)”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“But we danced, under wigs and between unfinished walls, through broken promises and around empty cupboards.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“It's not oil that runs the world, it's shame.”

Sherman Alexie

Source: War Dances

“It was so quiet, a reservation kind of quiet, where you can hear somebody drinking whiskey on the rocks three miles away.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“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.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993)

“I drew because words were too unpredictable.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Is revenge a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle?”

Sherman Alexie book Flight

Source: Flight

“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!”

Sherman Alexie

Ten Little Indians (2003)

“[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!”

Sherman Alexie

Ten Little Indians (2003)

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