Zitat des Tages von Sherman Alexie:
If I wasn't writing poems I'd be washing my hands all the time.
The form I most enjoy writing is the sonnet or sonnet-like forms, where you have a - you know, three stanzas or two stanzas that lead into a concluding couplet.
You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it.
When you construct a mix tape, the first song you come out with has to be a barnburner.
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.
When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author.
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.
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.
The people who loved me when I was seven years old love my books, and the people who didn't like me when I was seven years old don't like my books.
My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room.
I wanted to do a weird book and reestablish my independent, small-press roots.
You'd never know it from reading the rest of the Native writers, but Indians actually grew up with American pop culture.
I was a controversial figure on my reservation when I was a kid. I was mouthy and opinionated and arrogant. Nothing has changed.
The dream he needed most was the dream that frightened him more.
A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.
All art is exploitation.
I don't know what any individual should do about crossing her own borders. I only know that I live a happier, more adventurous life, by crossing borders.
I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.
I had the feeling I was going to be successful, and I didn't want to be another disappointing Indian.
My name is Sherman J. Alexie Jr., and I am an insomniac.
What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment.
In a real-world way, my gifts are very limited in terms of what I can do.
Nostalgia is always doomed and dooming.
My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage.
I'm a method writer. In order to write about the emotion, I have to experience it. I get physically tired and exhausted, devoting hours and hours and hours to it.
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.
My father is an amazing man.
Well, I think the worst part about tribalism is its tendency to fundamentalize, and if I can fight fundamentalism in any of its forms I'm happy.
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.
There isn't a lot of poverty literature in the young-adult world. And I don't know why that is, but I think certainly I felt a gap.
I look more Indian when I'm serious.
White Americans have a short memory.
Certainly I'm angry at the way Indians have been treated and continue to be treated. But I don't think it's a helpless emotion.
I think that white women are more apt to read laterally. So I think there's some strong identification for women, and their political and social positions, and minorities. I think that the political power of, let's say, the average Indian man and a white woman are pretty equal.
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.'
My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures.