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.
White Americans have a short memory.
My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room.
My name is Sherman J. Alexie Jr., and I am an insomniac.
My father was sleepless most of his life. So by the age of five, I was awake with him all night long, watching bad television or we’d lie in the same bed, and I’d read my comic books while he read his latest spy or mystery novel.
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.
My father is an amazing man.
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.
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.
I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.
Spiritual matters should be private.
That’s one more thing people don’t know about Indians: We love to talk dirty.
Writing is a lonely business.
When you construct a mix tape, the first song you come out with has to be a barnburner.
I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian – that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing young adult literature.
And then I realized that my sister was trying to LIVE a romance novel. Man, that takes courage and imagination. Well, it also took some degree of mental illness, too, but I was suddenly happy for her. And a little scared. Well, a lot scared.
All art is exploitation.
I don’t have to participate in another culture’s ceremonies in order to respect that culture.
I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture.