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I felt so conflicted about having fled the rez as a kid that I created a whole literary career that left me there.

Sherman Alexie

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Sherman Alexie
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: October 7
Film Director
Film Producer
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Wellpinit
Washington
Sherman Joseph Alexie
Jr.
Kids
Conflicted
Whole
Fled
Literary
Created
Career
Careers
Felt
Left

More quotes by Sherman Alexie

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My parents banned nothing, though the Christian fundamentalists in my tribe held book-and-record burnings every now and again. So, yes, fundamentalist assholes can also be brown-skinned.
Sherman Alexie
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I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I was not alone in the loneliness. There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream. (217)
Sherman Alexie
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Religious fundamentalists are unaware that freedom of religion necessarily brings with it the freedom to mock religion.
Sherman Alexie
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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.
Sherman Alexie
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I was a controversial figure on my reservation when I was a kid. I was mouthy and opinionated and arrogant. Nothing has changed.
Sherman Alexie
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They put me in a holding cell with a black kid and a white kid and a Chinese kid. We're the United Nations of juvenile delinquents.
Sherman Alexie
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In a real-world way, my gifts are very limited in terms of what I can do.
Sherman Alexie
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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.
Sherman Alexie
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If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything.
Sherman Alexie
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All art is exploitation.
Sherman Alexie
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A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.
Sherman Alexie
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White Americans have a short memory.
Sherman Alexie
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It's not oil that runs the world, it's shame.
Sherman Alexie
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I recognize now that the conditions that Indians are living in are the conditions that poor people everywhere are living in.
Sherman Alexie
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You want the good life? You live where white people live, you go to school where white people go to school, and you shop where white people shop.
Sherman Alexie
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I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.
Sherman Alexie
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Let us now celebrate the literary allusion.
Sherman Alexie
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Sixty percent of all Indians live in urban areas, but nobody's writing about them. They're really an underrepresented population, and the ironic thing is very, very few of those we call Native American writers actually grew up on reservations, and yet most of their work is about reservations.
Sherman Alexie
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Read. Read 1000 pages for every 1 page that you write.
Sherman Alexie
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Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he'd never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. (189)
Sherman Alexie