Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr., born October 7, 1966) is an American poet, writer, and filmmaker. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a Native American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth7 October 1966
CityWelpinet, WA
CountryUnited States of America
Sherman Alexie quotes about
writing hands washing
If I wasn't writing poems I'd be washing my hands all the time.
dream frightened needed
The dream he needed most was the dream that frightened him more.
night assumption cop
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.
eggs elephants feels
I feel like a carton of eggs holding up an elephant.
night maps realizing
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.
dream song cancer
Everyone I have lost in the closing of a door the click of the lock is not forgotten, they do not die but remain within the soft edges of the earth, the ash of house fires and cancer in sin and forgiveness huddled under old blankets dreaming their way into my hands, my heart closing tight like fists. - "Indian Boy Love Song #1
father giving healthy
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.
sky telescopes study
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.
coffins buried used
She wanted to be buried in a coffin filled with used paperbacks.
winter night feet
Seems like the cold would never go away and winter would be like the bottom of my feet but then it is gone in one night and in its place comes the sun so large and laughable.
dad anger school
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.'
spiritual native-american thinking
All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.
revenge circles
Is revenge a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle?
pain
Pain is never added to pain. It multiplies.