Sherman Alexie citations

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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)”

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

“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.”

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

“Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.”

“That's right, I am a book kisser.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“We're all travelling heavy with illusions.”

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

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

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

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

“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?”

“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".”

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