Sherman Alexie

He looked into the crowd for approval, saw his mother and father. He waved and they waved back. Smiles and Indian teeth. They were both drunk. Everything familiar and welcome. Everything beautiful.

But, in the Trump aftermath, I've measured the costsAnd benefits of loving those who don't loveStrangers. After all, I'm often the odd one__he strangest stranger__n any field or room."He was weird" will be carved into my tomb.

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

I was emotionally erect.

Can you hear the dreams crackling like a campfire? Can you hear the dreams sweeping through the pine trees and tipis? Can you hear the dreams laughing in the sawdust? Can you hear the dreams shaking just a little bit as the day grows long? Can you hear the dreams putting on a good jacket that smells of fry bread and sweet smoke? Can you hear the dreams stay up late and talk so many stories?

And I couldn't make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either.We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly:

Shit," he said. "I don't know why you're feeling sorry for yourself because you ain't had to fight a war. You're lucky. Shit, all you had was that damn Desert Storm. Should have called it Dessert Storm because it just made the fat cats get fatter. It was all sugar and whipped cream with a cherry on top. And besides that, you didn't even have to fight in it. All you lost during that was was sleep because you stayed up all night watching CNN.

You meet me after school right here", I said."Why?" he asked.I couldn't believe he was so stupid."Because we're going to finish this fight.""You're crazy," Roger said.He got to his feet and walked away. His gang stared at me like I was a serail killer, and they followed their leader.I was absolutely confused.I had followed the rules of fighting. i had behaved exactly the way I was supposed to behave. But these white boys had ignored the rules. In fact, they followed a whole other set of mysterious rules where people apparently DID NOT GET INTO FISTFIGHTS.(65)

The white people always want to fight someone and they always get the dark-skinned people to do the fighting.

(I think Rowdy might be the most important person in my life. maybe more important than my family.) Can your best friend be more importamt than your family?

What if someone picks on me?" I askedThen I'll pick on them".What if someone picks my nose?" I asked.The I'll pick your nose, too" Rowdy said.

Read. Read 1000 pages for every 1 page that you write.

I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,' I said. 'By Black and White. By Indian and White. But I know this isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.

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

Teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and for education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads.

[Or perhaps my friends should have realized that they shouldn't have left behind the FRICKING REASON FOR THEIR PROTEST!And that thought just cracked me up.]It was like my friends had walked over the backs of baby seals in order to get to the beach where they could protest against the slaughter of baby seals.

Somebody dies and people eat your food. Funny how that works.

Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a a skeleton walking one step in front of you. Maybe you don't wear a watch, but your skeletons do, and they always know what time it is.