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" White Americans have a short memory. "

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" You'd never know it from reading the rest of the Native writers, but Indians actually grew up with American pop culture. "

" In a real-world way, my gifts are very limited in terms of what I can do. "

" 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. "

" All I owe the world is my art. "

" What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment. "

" I don't have to participate in another culture's ceremonies in order to respect that culture. "

" My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures. "

" I wanted to do a weird book and reestablish my independent, small-press roots. "

" 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. "

" Writing is a lonely business. "

" 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 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. "

" I thought I'd been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing young adult literature. "

" The dream he needed most was the dream that frightened him more. "

" Spiritual matters should be private. "

" My career means, if you're a non-Indian writing about Indians, at least there's one Indian in your rearview mirror. "

" In the middle of the night, when you're ambiguously ethnic, like me, when you're brown, beige, mauve, siena, one of those lighter browns in the Crayola box. You have to be careful of the cops and robbers, because nobody's quite sure what you are, but everybody has assumptions. "

" My name is Sherman J. Alexie Jr., and I am an insomniac. "

" 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. "

" 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 had the feeling I was going to be successful, and I didn't want to be another disappointing Indian. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I felt so conflicted about having fled the rez as a kid that I created a whole literary career that left me there. "

" 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 father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room. "

" I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators. "

" Nostalgia is always doomed and dooming. "