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Quote by Sherman Alexie

“I hear poetry whenever I turn on the radio. Eminem is a better poet than just about everybody. He's better than Billy Collins; he's better than Richard Wilbur; he's better than me.”

Quote by Sherman Alexie

Author

Sherman Alexie is an American poet, writer, and actor, known for his works that reflect the life of Native Americans. He was born on October 7, 1966, and grew up in the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Rainier, Washington. more

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“The problem for me with liberals is that we've abdicated our moral responsibility to the universe.”

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“I know a lot about being white - because I have to, I live in the white world. A white person doesn't live in the Indian world. I have to be white every day.”

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“If I were a doctor nobody would be inviting me to talk to reservations. I'd be a different person. Writers can influence more people.”

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“Learn from the rejection and turn it into an opportunity!”

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“Environmentalism is a luxury. Just like being a vegetarian is a luxury. When you have to worry about eating - you're not going to be worried about where the food's coming from, or who made your shoes. Poverty, whether planned or not planned, is a way of making environmentalism moot.”

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“Indians have no monopoly on environmentalism. That's one of the great myths. But we were subsistence livers. They're two different things. Environmentalism is a conscious choice and subsistence is the absence of choice. We had to use everything to survive. And now that we've been assimilated and colonized and we have luxuries and excesses, we're just as wasteful as other people.”

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Author:Sherman Alexie

“I think most Native American literature is unreadable by the vast majority of Native Americans. Generally speaking Indians don't read books. It's not a book culture. That's why I'm trying to make movies. Indians go to movies; Indians own video recorders.”

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“Poetry can add its grain to an accumulation of consciousness against the idea that there is no alternative - that we're just in the great flow of capitalism and it can never be any different - that this is human destiny, this is human nature.”

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“The percentage of Indian kids doing some sort of artistic work is much higher than in the general population - painting, drawing, dancing, singing. The creation of art is still an everyday part of Indian culture, unlike the dominant culture, where art is sort of peripheral.”

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“I think my work comes out of both an intense desire for connection and what it means to feel isolated. There's always going to be a kind of tidal movement back and forth between the two.”

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