Being The Other Sherman Alexie Quotes

#1. In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people.

Linus Torvalds

#2. I know a lot about being white - because I have to, I live in the white world. A white person doesn't live in the Indian world. I have to be white every day.

Sherman Alexie

#3. As a Jew, I had no desire to challenge my childhood prejudice. But as a teacher, I could not do otherwise.

Sondra Perl

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

Sherman Alexie

#5. And I know there has never been a human being or a television show, no matter how great, that could measure up to a great book. But

Sherman Alexie

#6. Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didn't pay well at all.

Sherman Alexie

#7. You wouldn't think there is anything life threatening about speech impediments, but let me tell you, there is nothing more dangerous than being a kid with a stutter and a lisp.

Sherman Alexie

#8. I had left the tribe, and I was being punished for that.

Sherman Alexie

#9. I knew I was being an idiot. But I figured if I kept being an idiot, if I didn't actually accept the truth, then the truth would become false.

Sherman Alexie

#10. Reconciliation will not work if it puts a higher value on symbolic gestures and overblown promises rather than the practical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in areas like health, housing, education and employment.

Warren Mundine

#11. You have to get very comfortable with the idea of being lonely. For all of human history, we've always run away from being lonely and now there are even more distractions. But that's the thing - if you're going to make the decision to rebel against your tribe, you're going to get very lonely.

Sherman Alexie

#12. He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself (Christian morals).

Thomas Browne

#13. 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.

Sherman Alexie

#14. The very first step to becoming a follower of Jesus Christ is the humble admission that we need him. Nothing keeps us out of the kingdom of God more surely than our pride and self-sufficiency.

John R.W. Stott

#15. 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.

Sherman Alexie

#16. On the Death of his Child Dew Evaporates And all our world is dew ... so dear, So fresh, so fleeting

Kobayashi Issa

#17. But I'm also addicted to books. And I know there has never been a human being or a television show, no matter how great, that could measure up to a great book.

Sherman Alexie

#18. Environmentalism is a luxury. Just like being a vegetarian is a luxury. When you have to worry about eating - you're not going to be worried about where the food's coming from, or who made your shoes. Poverty, whether planned or not planned, is a way of making environmentalism moot.

Sherman Alexie

#19. Non-Indian writers usually say "Great Spirit," "Mother Earth," "Two-Legged, Four-Legged, and Winged." Mixed-blood writers usually say "Creator, "Mother Earth," "Two-Legged, Four- Legged, and Winged." Indian writers usually say "God," "Mother Earth," "Human Being, Dog, and Bird."

Sherman Alexie

#20. It is possible to grieve for the loss of a thing even as you are in possession of it. To crave the very thing you have been blessed with.

Joe Blair

#21. I thought maybe if you wore different clothes at school,' Paul said, 'maybe you could start a trend. You'd be original.' 'Oh, my God,' she said. 'It's high school, Dad. People get beat up for being original.

Sherman Alexie

#22. Being colonized automatically makes you bipolar.

Sherman Alexie

#23. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Paul Romer

#24. I don't think there's a whole lot of class literature at all. I think most of that has become racially based, and people don't think of it as being class literature.

Sherman Alexie

#25. For Foucauld and the Little Brothers, life in the desert was not a flight from the world but rather a school of love and prayer to learn to enter more deeply into humanity. Their goal was to shout the gospel not so much with their mouths as with their lives.

Brennan Manning

#26. Sir, in your thirty-nine years as a parent, you broke your children's hearts, collectively and individually, 612 times and you did this without ever striking any human being in anger. Does this absence of physical violence make you a better man than you might otherwise have been?

Sherman Alexie

#27. I got hundreds of emails insulting me, accusing me of being some caveman. I am by no means a Luddite. I have two iPods. I have a cell phone. I have cable TV, HDTV!

Sherman Alexie

#28. Had she been hanging on to her dream of being a writer, but only barely hanging on, and something made her let go?

Sherman Alexie

#29. Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.

Sherman Alexie