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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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Sherman Alexie
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: October 7
Film Director
Film Producer
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Wellpinit
Washington
Sherman Joseph Alexie
Jr.
Nothing
Held
Burnings
Every
Record
Assholes
Parents
Skinned
Parent
Fundamentalists
Though
Fundamentalist
Christian
Banned
Also
Tribe
Book
Brown

More quotes by Sherman Alexie

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He looked into the crowd for approval, saw his mother and father. He waved and they waved back. Smiles and Indian teeth. They were both drunk. Everything familiar and welcome. Everything beautiful.
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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.
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I end up feeling like a spy in the house of ethnicity, you know? Because people will talk around me as they would talk around the people in their cultural group. So I get to hear all the secrets and jokes and you know, I'm a part of every community because of the way I look.
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In a real-world way, my gifts are very limited in terms of what I can do.
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My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures.
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I've come to the point in my life where I encourage young Native Americans to become much more selfish about their personal needs and wants.
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[F]rank knew he was guilty of arrogance and misanthropy, but he compensated by being kind to strangers and tipping really well at restaurants.
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Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.
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We're all travelling heavy with illusions.
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Don't live up to your stereotypes.
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I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.
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Only in rock music and the literary world you see so many ugly white guys with beautiful women. That says a lot about the women, their character. They're attracted to more than surface.
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I used to think the world was broken down by tribes, I said. By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not.
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The poetry, if you will, of life is reduced to this sort of dry, scientific, you know, it's the worst sort of précis of who we are.
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The problem is that too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make their lives simple, when their emotional lives are just as complicated as ours. They might have a few less tools to deal with it because they're young, but the emotions are all the same, and the subject matter is all the same.
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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.
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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
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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.'
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Sometimes it's called passing out and sometimes it's just pretending to be asleep
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My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room.
Sherman Alexie