Quotes By 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.

What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment.

I had the feeling I was going to be successful, and I didn't want to be another disappointing Indian.

All I owe the world is my art.

Sixty percent of all Indians live in urban areas, but nobody's writing about them. They're really an underrepresented population, and the ironic thing is very, very few of those we call Native American writers actually grew up on reservations, and yet most of their work is about reservations.

Well, I think the worst part about tribalism is its tendency to fundamentalize, and if I can fight fundamentalism in any of its forms I'm happy.

Nostalgia is always doomed and dooming.

I don't think there's a whole lot of class literature at all. I think most of that has become racially based, and people don't think of it as being class literature.

In a real-world way, my gifts are very limited in terms of what I can do.

My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room.

A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.

Spiritual matters should be private.

I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture.

My career means, if you're a non-Indian writing about Indians, at least there's one Indian in your rearview mirror.

My father is an amazing man.

I wanted to do a weird book and reestablish my independent, small-press roots.

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.

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.

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

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

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.