Sherman's Musings

Sherman Alexie was quoted to say:

"We're either portrayed as either the noble savage or the ignoble savage. In most people's minds, we only exist in the nineteenth century."

"Nobody ever asked Raymond Carver to speak for every white guy."

"I don't believe in writers' block. I think it's laziness and/or fear."

"I've heard it said that Indians shouldn't become involved in high-stakes
gambling because it tarnishes our noble heritage. Personally, I've never
believed in the nobility of poverty. Personally, I believe in the nobility
of breakfast, lunch and dinner."

All art is exploitation.
Sherman Alexie

All I owe the world is my art.
Sherman Alexie

If I wasn't writing poems I'd be washing my hands all the time.
Sherman Alexie

My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures.
Sherman Alexie

The dream he needed most was the dream that frightened him more.
Sherman Alexie

"A Disco SONG? Oh yeh! Did you know that when my brother Arnold would go down to the Indian Bar, get drunk and hit the dancefloor that people would call each other just so they could go down and watch? 'Hurry, get down here,' they'd say, 'Arnold is DANCING!!!,'' he yukked. "Then, there was this this twelve-year-old Indian boy who could do ALL of Travolta's "Saturday Night Fever" moves. His family even bought him a white Travolta suit. Every woman on the Rez wanted to dance with him. They did, but they felt kinda bad about it later. It was humiliating to admit you enjoyed dancing with a twelve year-old in a white Travolta suit with a flat-top haircut."

More Alexie patter:

Surround yourself with professional people...then get out of the way!

I am Fidel Castro about my own books, but become the Senator from Wyoming when it comes to my movies.

Russell Crowe makes me tingle!

Thanks for being Cherokee!

Some of my best friends are Anthropologists!

I have a problem with authority. I've been fired from every job I've had.

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing."
— Sherman Alexie (The Toughest Indian in the World)

""Poetry = Anger x Imagination""
— Sherman Alexie

"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."
— Sherman Alexie

If the letter writer is an attractive blond female ... she can head to the next powwow in the region where she lives, pick out a handsome fancydancer, and hit on him. She’ll either get laid in the back of a casino-money-financed SUV or she’ll get assaulted by a roving band of Indian women looking to protect our most precious and dwindling resource: Native American men.