Sherman Alexie

He wanted the songs, the stories, to save everybody.

She was in pain and I loved her, sort of loved her, I guess, so I kind of had to love her pain, too.

What kind of life can you have in a house without books?

That's the whole point of life, you know? To meet new people.

They put me in a holding cell with a black kid and a white kid and a Chinese kid. We're the United Nations of juvenile delinquents.

Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions.

Estranged from the tribe that gives no protection, What happens to the soul that hates its reflection?

Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he'd never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. (189)

Nervous means you want to play. Scared means you don't want to play.

I drew because words were too unpredictable. (5)

Like officer Dave.He's never said much about his life, but I can tell he's scarred. And he knows I'm scarred too. The wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other.

If it's fiction, then it better be true.

That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice. I'm traveling heavy with illusions.

But we danced, under wigs and between unfinished walls, through broken promises and around empty cupboards.

I suddenly understood that if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of a life should be taken seriously as well.

My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.