I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it. If I draw a cartoon of a flower, then every man, woman, and child in the world can look at it and say, "That's a flower.
Interpretation
Art transcends language barriers, allowing universal understanding through visual representation.
This quote by Sherman Alexie emphasizes the power of visual art over spoken or written language in conveying meaning. It highlights the limitations of words in expressing ideas that can be universally understood, asserting that images and drawings can communicate concepts to all people, regardless of their linguistic background.
In practice
During a presentation on art therapy, I might use this quote to illustrate the significance of visual expression.
Gordie, the white boy genius, gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians, and he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the frikkin' booze.
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.
We all have to find our own ways to say good-bye.
I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don't write to protect them. It's far too late for that. I write to give them weapons-in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.
A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.
I was studying the sky like I was an astronomer, except it was daytime and I didn't have a telescope, so I was just an idiot.
You would get some fantastic syntactical phenomena. You would hear people talking in Barbados in the exact melody as a minor character in Shakespeare. Because here you have a thing that was not immured and preserved and mummified, but a voluble language, very active, very swift, very sharp.
To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
What I need most of all is color, always, always.
The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.
A songwriter's supreme challenge is being complex and simple at the same time
I treat auditions like I treated my first dates. It's an opportunity to get to know a stranger and to learn from each other.
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