Sherman Alexie - Indian Quotes

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It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.

Sherman Alexie
And I couldn't make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either. We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly:

Sherman Alexie
Non-Indian writers usually say "Great Spirit," "Mother Earth," "Two-Legged, Four-Legged, and Winged." Mixed-blood writers usually say "Creator, "Mother Earth," "Two-Legged, Four- Legged, and Winged." Indian writers usually say "God," "Mother Earth," "Human Being, Dog, and Bird."

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

Sherman Alexie
He looked into the crowd for approval, saw his mother and father. He waved and they waved back. Smiles and Indian teeth. They were both drunk. Everything familiar and welcome. Everything beautiful.

Sherman Alexie
Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they're not here and haven't been for years, so I'm not really Irish or Indian. I am a blank sky, a human solar eclipse.

Sherman Alexie
Those Montana Indians were so tough that white people were scared of them. Can you imagine a place where white people are scared of Indians and not the other way around? That's Montana.

Sherman Alexie
It's like this white-Indian thing has gotten out of control. And the thing with the blacks and the Mexicans. Everybody blaming everybody...I don't know what happened. I can't explain it all. Just look around at the world. Look at this country. Things just aren't like they used to be.' 'Son, things have never been like what you think they used to be.

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

Sherman Alexie
That's one more thing people don't know about Indians: We love to talk dirty.

Sherman Alexie
Reardan is the rich white farm town that sits in the wheat fields exactly 22 miles away from the Rez. And it's a hick town I suppose filled with farmers and rednecks and racists cops who stop every Indian that drives through. During one week when I was little dad got stopped three times for DWI- Driving While Indian.

Sherman Alexie
It's a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten the reservations were meant to be death camps.

Sherman Alexie