Sherman Alexie

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

Victor: White people won't respect you if you don't look mean. You have to look like a warrior, like you just got back from killing a buffalo. Victor: What, you want to look like you just caught a fish? This isn't Dances with Salmon, you know!

— Sherman Alexie

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

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

Everyone I have lost

— Sherman Alexie

I don't want long hair, I don't want short hair, I don't want hair at all, and I don't want to be a girl or a boy, I want to be a yellow-orange leaf some little kid picks up and pastes in his scrapbook.

— Sherman Alexie

Oh, I'm sorry, sir, if I offended you. I am not anti-Semitic. I love all of my brothers and sisters. Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, even the atheists, I love them all. Like you Americans sing, 'Joy to the world and Jeremiah Bullfrog!

— Sherman Alexie

William always scanned the airports and airplanes for little brown guys who reeked of fundamentalism. That meant William was equally afraid of Osama bin Laden and Jerry Falwell wearing the last vestiges of a summer tan. William himself was a little brown guy, so the other travelers were always sniffing around him, but he smelled only of Dove soap, Mennen deoderant, and sarcasm.

— Sherman Alexie

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.'

— Sherman Alexie

Poetry = Anger x Imagination

— Sherman Alexie

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

— Sherman Alexie

Did she say anything before she died?" he asked.

— Sherman Alexie

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

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

— Sherman Alexie

So I heard the boom of my father's rifle when he shot my best friend. A bullet only costs about two cents, and anybody can afford that.

— Sherman Alexie

The ordinary can be like medicine.

— Sherman Alexie