Sherman Alexie

“Teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and for education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads.

“What kind of life can you have in a house without books?”

“I was emotionally erect.”

“I ain't interested in the truth. I'm interested in the way things should be.”

“As a child, I read because books–violent and not, blasphemous and not, terrifying and not–were the most loving and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors faced by Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. But I became the kid chased by werewolves, vampires, and evil clowns in Stephen King’s books. I read books about monsters and monstrous things, often written with monstrous language, because they taught me how to battle the real monsters in my life.And now I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons–in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.”

“[Or perhaps my friends should have realized that they shouldn't have left behind the FRICKING REASON FOR THEIR PROTEST!And that thought just cracked me up.]It was like my friends had walked over the backs of baby seals in order to get to the beach where they could protest against the slaughter of baby seals.”

“Coach said. "the quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor".”

“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:”

“There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.”

“I always think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during the first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians.So I'm never quite sure why we eat turkey like everybody else.”

“You meet me after school right here", I said."Why?" he asked.I couldn't believe he was so stupid."Because we're going to finish this fight.""You're crazy," Roger said.He got to his feet and walked away. His gang stared at me like I was a serail killer, and they followed their leader.I was absolutely confused.I had followed the rules of fighting. i had behaved exactly the way I was supposed to behave. But these white boys had ignored the rules. In fact, they followed a whole other set of mysterious rules where people apparently DID NOT GET INTO FISTFIGHTS.(65)”

“(I think Rowdy might be the most important person in my life. maybe more important than my family.) Can your best friend be more importamt than your family?”

“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.”

“And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.”

“The connection was good. I could hear her breathing in the spaces between our words. How do you talk to the real person whose ghost has haunted you? How do you tell the difference between the two?”

“More and more, he heard his spine playing stick games through his skin, singing old dusty words, the words of all his years.”

“it's way too early for him to be talking anyhow but I see in his eyes something and I see in his eyes a voice and I see in his eyes a whole new set of words”

“I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,' I said. 'By Black and White. By Indian and White. But I know this isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.”

“I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser. Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent.”

“Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito...”

“Maria was staring at me like I was wearing purple socks. ‘Wow,” she said. “That’s exactly what music is.’ And then she started crying again. But this time, she wept quietly. ‘You understand,” she said. 'You really understand.”

“The morning of the game, I'd woken up in my rez house so my dad could drive me the twenty-two miles to Reardan, so I could get on the team bus for the ride back to the reservation. Crazy. ”

“...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.”

“The killer simply picked any one of the men in gray suits and followed them from office building to cash machine, from lunchtime restaurant back to office building. Those gray suits were not happy, yet showed their unhappiness only during moments of weakness. Punching the buttons of a cash machine that refused to work. Yelling at a taxi that had come too close. Insulting the homeless people who begged for spare change. But the killer also saw the more subtle signs of unhappiness. A slight limp in uncomfortable shoes. Eyes closed, head thrown back while waiting for the traffic signal. The slight hesitation before opening a door. The men in gray suits wanted to escape, but their hatred and anger trapped them.”

“Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.”

“I remember when people used to think I was smart.I remember when people used to think my brain was useful.Damaged by water, sure. And ready to seizure at any moment. But still useful, and maybe even a little bit beautiful and sacred and magical.”

“Is God a man or a woman?God could be an armadillo. I have no idea.”

“We didn’t domesticate cats. They domesticated themselves. But not totally, you know? You take a good look at any house cat, and you can tell there’s eventually going to be a day when it goes back wild, you know? When it reverts to its true nature. You fall over and die in a house with your dog, and your dog will lie down beside your dead body, maybe right on top of it, and starve to death. But a house cat will feast on your eyes as soon as its stomach starts growling.”

“She’d wanted to completely shave her head: 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 and orange leaf some little kid picks up and pastes in his scrapbook.”

“[F]rank knew he was guilty of arrogance and misanthropy, but he compensated by being kind to strangers and tipping really well at restaurants.”

“As for romance, Frank had dated a few women over the years but found them to be too inconsistent and illogical, so he dated a few men and found them to be even more random and frightening.”

“When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.”

“You have to treat your car with love. And I don’t mean love of an object. You see, that’s just wrong. That’s materialism. You have to love your car like it’s sentient being, like it can love you back. Now, that’s some deep-down agape love.”

“What’s so funny?’ asked Peone.‘Catholic cops are funny,’ said Lester.‘You were listening?’‘Yeah.’‘Yeah? Catholic Indians are funny.’‘There’s lots of Catholic Indians.’‘There’s lots of Catholic cops.”

“...And nostalgia is a cancer. Nostalgia will fill your heart up with tumors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what you are. You're just an old fart dying of terminal nostalgia.”

“Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions.”

“So I guess you were hopelessly romantic and easily distracted, a B-plus mother, certainly good enough to get into Matriarchal State University but not quite good enough for St. Mary's College of the Blessed Womb Warriors.”

“James tells the crowd that the river is just a few yards from where we stand is all we ever need to believe in. One white woman asks how old James is and I tell her he's seven and she tells me that he's so smart for an Indian boy. James hears this and tells the white woman that she's pretty smart for an old white woman.”

“That's the whole point of life, you know? To meet new people.”

“The world is divided by two different tribes. The people who are assholes and the people who are not.”

“Like officer Dave.He's never said much about his life, but I can tell he's scarred. And he knows I'm scarred too. The wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other. ”

“These are things you should learn. Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you; your future is 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. Now, these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices. And they can trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming. But they’re not necessarily evil, unless you let them be.”

“she braided my sister's hair with hands that smelled deeproots buried in the earthshe told me the old storieshow time never matteredwhen she diedthey gave me her clock”

“Sometimes it's called passing out and sometimes it's just pretending to be asleep”

“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.”

“If it's fiction, then it better be true.”

“Corliss wondered what happens to a book that sits unread on a library shelf for thirty years. Can a book rightfully be called a book if it never gets read?...'How many books never get checked out," Corliss asked the librarian. 'Most of them,' she said.Corliss never once considered the fate of library books. She loved books. How could she not worry about the unread? She felt like a disorganized scholar, an abusive mother, and a cowardly soldier.'Are you serious?' Corliss asked. 'What are we talking about here? If you were guessing, what is the percentage of books in this library that never get checked out?' 'We're talking sixty percent of them. Seriously. Maybe seventy percent. And I'm being optimistic. It's probably more like eighty or ninety percent. This isn't a library, it's an orphanage.'The librarian talked in a reverential whisper. Corliss knew she'd misjudged this passionate woman. Maybe she dressed poorly, but she was probably great in bed, certainly believed in God and goodness, and kept an illicit collection of overdue library books on her shelves.”

“Rowdy and I played one-on-one for hours. we played until dark. we played until the streetlights lit up court. we played until the bats swooped down at our heads. we played until the moon was huge and golden and perfect in the dark sky.we didn't keep score.”

“That's right, I am a book kisser.”

“and then she asks me how many sexual partners I've had and I say one or twodepending on your definition of what I did to Custer . . .”