Sherman Alexie

“Then I remember that God is really, really old. So maybe God has God arthritis. And maybe that's why the world sucks. Maybe God's hands and fingers don't work as well as they used to.”

“So Lightning says to Mud,“What would happen if I struck your blood?”And Mud says, “Brother, It would hurt, And make me the motherOf every living thing.But, Fire Boy, you ain’t lifting my grass skirtUntil you burn me a ring.”

“In all those stories, I could fly.”

“I'm a freak with power.”

“All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferablyfrom a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory.If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slenderand in love with a white man. But if she loves an Indian manthen he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture.If the Indian woman loves a white man, then he has to be so whitethat we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers.When the Indian woman steps out of her dress, the white man gaspsat the endless beauty of her brown skin. She should be compared to nature: brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water.If she is compared to murky water, however, then she must have a secret.Indians always have secrets, which are carefully and slowly revealed.Yet Indian secrets can be disclosed suddenly, like a storm.Indian men, of course, are storms. The should destroy the livesof any white women who choose to love them. All white women loveIndian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgustat the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him. White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures.Indian men are horses, smelling wild and gamey. When the Indian manunbuttons his pants, the white woman should think of topsoil.There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted rape.Alcohol should be consumed. Cars must be driven at high speeds.Indians must see visions. White people can have the same visionsif they are in love with Indians. If a white person loves an Indianthen the white person is Indian by proximity. White people must carryan Indian deep inside themselves. Those interior Indians are half-breedand obviously from horse cultures. If the interior Indian is male then he must be a warrior, especially if he is inside a white man.If the interior Indian is female, then she must be a healer, especially if she is insidea white woman. Sometimes there are complications.An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian womancan be hidden inside a white man. In these rare instances, everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn more about his or her horse culture.There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven.For this, we need children. A white child and an Indian child, gendernot important, should express deep affection in a childlike way.In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written, all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.”

“1Cain lifts Crow, that heavy black birdand strikes down Abel.Damn, says Crow, I guessthis is just the beginning.2The white man, disguisedas a falcon, swoops inand yet again steals a salmonfrom Crow's talons.Damn, says Crow, if I could swimI would have fled this country years ago.3The Crow God as depictedin all of the reliable Crow bibleslooks exactly like a Crow.Damn, says Crow, this makes it so much easier to worship myself.4Among the ashes of Jericho, Crow sacrifices his firstborn son.Damn, says Crow, a million nestsare soaked with blood.5When Crows fight Crowsthe sky fills with beaks and talons.Damn, says Crow, it's raining feathers.6Crow flies around the reservationand collects empty beer bottlesbut they are so heavyhe can only carry one at a time.So, one by one, he returns thembut gets only five cents a bottle.Damn, says Crow, redemptionis not easy.7Crow rides a pale horseinto a crowded powwowbut none of the Indian panic.Damn, says Crow, I guessthey already live near the end of the world.”

“The white woman across the aisle from me says 'Look, look at all the history, that houseon the hill there is over two hundred years old, 'as she points out the window past meinto what she has been taught. I have learnedlittle more about American history during my few daysback East than what I expected and far lessof what we should all know of the tribal storieswhose architecture is 15,000 years olderthan the corners of the house that sitsmuseumed on the hill. 'Walden Pond, 'the woman on the train asks, 'Did you see Walden Pond? 'and I don't have a cruel enough heart to breakher own by telling her there are five Walden Pondson my little reservation out Westand at least a hundred more surrounding Spokane, the city I pretended to call my home. 'Listen, 'I could have told her. 'I don't give a shitabout Walden. I know the Indians were living storiesaround that pond before Walden's grandparents were bornand before his grandparents' grandparents were born.I'm tired of hearing about Don-fucking-Henley saving it, too, because that's redundant. If Don Henley's brothers and sistersand mothers and father hadn't come here in the first placethen nothing would need to be saved.'But I didn't say a word to the woman about WaldenPond because she smiled so much and seemed delightedthat I thought to bring her an orange juiceback from the food car. I respect eldersof every color. All I really did was eatmy tasteless sandwich, drink my Diet Pepsiand nod my head whenever the woman pointed outanother little piece of her country's historywhile I, as all Indians have donesince this war began, made plansfor what I would do and say the next timesomebody from the enemy thought I was one of their own.”

“Listen," he said one afternoon in the library. "You have to read a book three times before you know it. The first time you read it for the story. The plot. The movement from scene to scene that gives the book its momentum, its rhythm. It's like riding a raft down a river. You're just paying attention to the currents. Do you understand that?""Not at all," I said."Yes, you do," he said."Okay, I do," I said. I really didn't, but Gordy believed in me. He wouldn't let me give up. The second time you read a book, you read it for its history, its knowledge of history.”

“Good art is not universal. Bruce Willis is universal.”

“If I had a baseball bat and bulldozer, maybe I could stop him. But without real weapons, without a pistol, a man-eating lion, and a vial of bubonic plague, I had zero change of competing against him.”

“He felt split in two, one crazy man eating hair and one rational man watching a crazy man eat hair. He chewed and swallowed the last pieces of his father's life. He felt like he was building a museum of pain, a freak show, where he was the only visitor viewing the only mutant screaming the only prayer he knew: Come back, Daddy. Come back, Daddy. Come back, Daddy. Come back, Daddy. Come back, Daddy. Come back, Daddy. Come back, Daddy. Come back Daddy...”

“Standing on the shore, I prayed for my dead. I praised them. I stupidly hoped that the lake would heal my small wounds. Then I stripped off my clothes and waded naked into the water.Jesus, I don't want to die today or tomorrow, but I don't want to live forever.”

“If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning.But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it.”

“And finally this, when the sun was falling down so beautiful we didn’t have time to give it a name, she held the child born of white mother and red father and said,’ Both sides of this baby are beautiful’.”

“It was so quiet, a reservation kind of quiet, where you can hear somebody drinking whiskey on the rocks three miles away.”

“When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author.”

“Let’s get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I’m pleased that the racist folks of Arizona haveofficially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I’m also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizonahave officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now.”

“Driving home, I heard the explosion and thought it was a new story born. But, Adrian, it’s the same old story, whispered past the same false teeth. How can we imagine a new language when the language of the enemy keeps our dismembered tongues tied to his belt? How can we imagine a new alphabet when the old jumps off billboards down into our stomachs? Adrian, what did you say? I want to rasp into sober cryptology and say something dynamic but tonight is my laundry night. How do we imagine a new life when a pocketful of quarters weighs our possibilities down?”

“He likes to pretend he lives inside the comic books. I guess a fake life inside a cartoon is a lot better than his real life.”

“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.”

“مسخره است که چه‌طور غصّه‌دارترین آدم‌ها، می‌توانند شادترین مست‌ها باشند.”

“I think I was born with a suitcase.”

“Instead, I woke early the next morning, before sunrise, and went out into the world. I walked past my car. I stepped onto the pavement, still warm from the previous day’s sun. I started walking. In bare feet, I traveled upriver toward the place where I was born and will someday die. At that moment, if you had broken open my heart you could have looked inside and seen the thin white skeletons of one thousand salmon.”

“He'd promise to see an organic nutritionist, aromatherapist, deep-tissue masseuse, feng shui consultant, yoga master, and Mormon stand-up comedian if those promises would help him get off this mountain.”

“La pobreza no te hace fuerte ni te da lecciones de perseverancia. No, la pobreza sólo te enseña a ser pobre.”

“I didn't literally kill Indians. We were supposed to make you give up being Indian. Your songs and stories and language and dancing. Everything. We weren't trying to kill Indian people. We were trying to kill Indian culture.”

“Naked women + right hand = happy happy joy joy”

“9.In the darkness, her dark body grows darkeruntil I am making love to her and her shadow.”

“4.On the first night of our honeymoonwe lie in bed, too exhausted for sexor conversation. Instead, we listento the surf, wave after wave after wave.”

“In the middle of a crazy and drunk life, you have to hang onto the good and sober moments tightly.”

“I learned how to stop crying.I learned how to hide inside of myself.I learned how to be somebody else.I learned how to be cold and numb.”

“What do you have to worry about? That you're lonely? That you have a mortgage? That your wife doesn't love you? F you, F you. I have to worry about having enough to eat!”

“He could see his uncles slugging each other with such force that they had to be in love. Strangers would never want to hurt each other that badly.”

“I had left the tribe, and I was being punished for that.”

“Funny how a little politeness can change people's minds.”

“He made me realize that hard work--that the act of finishing, of completing, of accomplishing a task--is joyous”

“Can you hear the dreams crackling like a campfire? Can you hear the dreams sweeping through the pine trees and tipis? Can you hear the dreams laughing in the sawdust? Can you hear the dreams shaking just a little bit as the day grows long? Can you hear the dreams putting on a good jacket that smells of fry bread and sweet smoke? Can you hear the dreams stay up late and talk so many stories?”

“Pain is never added to pain. It multiplies.”

“Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss army knives.”

“A few days earlier, Chess and Thomas had driven to Spokane for a cheap hamburger. They walked in downtown Spokane and stumbled onto a drunk couple arguing. "Get the fuck away from me!" the drunk woman yelled at her drunk husband, who squeezed his hand into a fist like he meant to hit her. Thomas and Chess flinched, then froze, transported back to all of those drunken arguments they'd witnessed and survived. The drunk couple in downtown Spokane pulled at each other's clothes and hearts, but they were white people. Chess and Thomas knew that white people hurt each other, too. Chess knew that white people felt pain just like Indians, Nerve endings, messages to the brain, reflexes. The doctor swung hammer against knee, and the world collapsed. "You fucker!" the white woman yelled at her husband, who opened his hands and held them out to his wife. An offering. That hand would not strike her. He pleaded with his wife until she fell back into his arms. That white woman and man held each other while Chess and Thomas watched. A hundred strangers walked by and never noticed any of it.After that, Chess and Thomas had sat in the van in a downtown parking lot. Thomas began to weep, deep ragged tears that rose along his rib cage, filled his mouth and nose, and exploded out.”

“He'd been just like all of the other performers in the world. He'd wanted to be universally loved. He wasn't all that different from Victor, Thomas, or even Junior. They all got onstage and wanted the audience to believe in them. They all wanted the audience to throw their room keys, panties, confessions, flowers, and songs onstage. They wanted the audience to trust them with their secrets.”

“Father Arnold finished the ceremony and asked if anybody had any final words for the dearly departed."Final words?" Chess asked, "I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop talking about this.”

“Thomas," Chess said, "if you don't want to be famous and have your stories heard, then why'd you start the band up?""I heard voices," Thomas said. "I guess I heard voices. I mean, I'm sort of a liar, enit? I like the attention. I want strangers to love me. I don't even know why. But I want all kids of strangers to love me."The Indian horses screamed.”

“Where's your dad now?" Thomas asked."He's gone."The word gone echoed all over the reservation. The reservation was gone itself, just a shell of its former self, just a fragment of the whole. But the reservation still possessed the power and rage, magic and loss, joys and jealousy. The reservation tugged at the lives of its Indians, stole from them in the middle of the night, watched impassively as the horses and salmon disappeared. But the reservation forgave, too. Sam Bone vanished between foot falls on the way to the Trading Post one summer day and reappeared years later to finish his walk. Thomas, Chess, and Checkers heard the word gone shake the foundation of the house.”

“I was young and frightened and craved respect and its ugly cousin, approval, so I did as I was told.”

“For the rest of our lives, all we can hear are our names chanted over and over, until we are deaf to everything else.”

“He wanted the songs, the stories, to save everybody.”

“He sang 'Stairway to Heaven' in four different languages but never knew where that staircase stood.”

“She wanted to find a way to love them in death, because she forgot how to love them in life.”

“She was in pain and I loved her, sort of loved her, I guess, so I kind of had to love her pain, too.”