The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

mirrors in which readers can see themselves on the pages of literature and thereby know their existence in the world is valid and true, and windows into worlds they might never have imagined.

speak truth to power with humor, grace, and love.

I draw because I want to talk to the world. And I want the world to pay attention to me.

Oscar was only an adopted stray mutt, but he was the only living thing that I could depend on.

I was too young to deal blackjack at the casino,

first Indians covered their privates with their tiny hands.

they never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams.

You start believing that you’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly.

Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.

Not redeemable. No blessing?

“What’s wrong with you?” he yelled. “Everything!” Rowdy yelled back.

lonely white people love to hang around lonelier Indians.

We were trying to kill Indian culture.”

“You’ve been fighting since you were born,” he said. “You fought off that brain surgery. You fought off those seizures. You fought off all the drunks and drug addicts. You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.”

world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don’t

If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.

“Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”

gay people, being both male and female, were seen as both warriors and caregivers. Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss Army knives!

white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity,

tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms. And the tribe of cartoonists. And the tribe of chronic masturbators. And the tribe of teenage boys.

antagonistic forgiveness?

Do you want to be a meteor or a meteorite?

every asshole minute of every shitty day of your goddamn life,

your mother and father are like gravity and oxygen and your world will EXPLODE without them.

number one bad thing about being poor is the feeling that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you’re poor because you are stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle,

celebrating education is huge,

my collaboration with a white person, with a white woman, echoing the collaboration of Junior inside the novel. It never even occurred to me,

Internet has made the tribalism and the tribal peer pressure even greater.

hope to be indigenous nostalgia’s greatest enemy. I hope that’s on my tombstone.

I feel most Indian, because I don’t have to talk about being Indian.

stopped underestimating the fifteen-year-old reader, the thirteen-year-old reader. SA: It stopped being condescending.