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She Was In Pain And I Loved Her, Sort Of Loved Her, I Guess, So I Kind Of Had To Love Her Pain, Too.
-Sherman Alexie
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She Was In Pain

Sherman Alexie
...
She Was In Pain And I Loved Her, Sort Of Loved Her, I Guess, So I Kind Of Had To Love Her Pain, Too.

Understanding the Quote: "she was in pain and i loved her, sort of loved her,..."

This quote by Sherman Alexie reflects deeply on the theme of pain. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Pain, Kind, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Sherman Alexie interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie is celebrated for insightful thoughts on pain and kind. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 38904
Topic
Pain
Kind
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Nobody Recognizes That A Bookstore Or Library Can Also Be A Drowning Polar Bear. And In This Country [us], Magazines, Newspapers, And Bookstores Are Drowning Polar Bears. And If People Can't See That Or Don't Want To Talk About It, I Don't Understand Them At All.
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They Put Me In A Holding Cell With A Black Kid And A White Kid And A Chinese Kid. We're The United Nations Of Juvenile Delinquents.
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If You Really Want A Woman To Love You, Then You Have To Dance. And If You Don’t Want To Dance, Then You’re Going To Have To Work Extra Hard To Make A Woman Love You Forever, And You Will Always Run The Risk That She Will Leave You At Any Second For A Man Who Knows How To Tango.
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My Only Purpose Is To Teach Children To Rebel Against Authority Figures.
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A Lot Of Native Culture Has Been Destroyed. So You Already Feel Lost Inside Your Culture. And Then You Add Up Feeling Lost And Insignificant Inside The Larger Culture. So You End Up Feeling Lost Squared. And To Never Be Recognized, To Never Have Any Power, You Know, Other Minority Communities Actually Have A Lot Of Economic, Cultural Power.
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Do You Know Why The Indian Rain Dances Always Worked? Because The Indians Would Keep Dancing Until It Rained.
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We Indians Really Should Be Better Liars, Considering How Often We've Been Lied To.
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The Cello Looks Like A Woman To Me. And, You Know, The Curves. And So I Am In A Way, And It's Funny To Admit This, I Am Sexually Attracted To The Cello, The Curves Really Get Me. So As I Watched Him Play, You Know, Yo Yo Ma Is Sort Of Making Love To A Beautiful Woman.
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And Believe Me, A Good Piece Of Chicken Can Make Anybody Believe In The Existence Of God.
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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.'
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When Are We Left-wingers Going To Learn That We Are Losing The Cultural And Political Battle With Conservatives Because We Are Fractured Into Narcissistic Special-interest Groups? Why Should An Antiwar Protestor Be So Concerned About Her Dietary Identity? The Political Opinions Of Vegetarians And Meat-eaters Are, After All, Equally Important. And What Does It Tell Us About Vegetarians That It Would Never Occur To Meat-eaters To Carry A Sign That Reads "pacifist Pork Chop Lover For Peace" Or "backyard Rib Barbecuer For International Nuclear Disarmament"?
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I Learned How To Stop Crying. I Learned How To Hide Inside Of Myself. I Learned How To Be Somebody Else. I Learned How To Be Cold And Numb.
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In Order To Know Somebody Through Their Words, I Mean, It Has To Be An, It Has To Be A Letter, You Know? It Has To Be A Long E-mail. It Has To Be A Five-page Hand-written Letter, You Know, It Has To Be Overwhelming And Messy And Sloppy As Humans Are.
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...there Are Some Children Who Aren't Really Children At All, They're Just Pillars Of Flame That Burn Everything They Touch. And There Are Some Children Who Are Just Pillars Of Ash, That Fall Apart When You Touch Them..." ~ Thomas Builds-the-fire (played By Evan Adams) In Alexie's "smoke Signals
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Girl
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Listen You Have To Read A Book Three Times Before You Know It.
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Three
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Mean
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Character
Mean
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Thinking
When It Comes To Death, We Know That Laughter And Tears Are Pretty Much The Same Thing. And So, Laughing And Crying, We Said Good-bye To My Grandmother. And When We Said Goodbye To One Grandmother, We Said Good-bye To All Of Them. Each Funeral Was A Funeral For All Of Us. We Lived And Died Together. All Of Us Laughed When They Lowered My Grandmother Into The Ground. And All Of Us Laughed When They Covered Her With Dirt. And All Of Us Laughed As We Walked And Drove And Rode Our Way Back To Our Lonely, Lonely Houses.
Goodbye
Lonely
Laughter
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Past
Skeletons
Watches
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Dave
Said
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Folks
International
Knows
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Book
Reading
I Remember When People Used To Think I Was Smart. I Remember When People Used To Think My Brain Was Useful. Damaged By Water, Sure. And Ready To Seizure At Any Moment. But Still Useful, And Maybe Even A Little Bit Beautiful And Sacred And Magical.
Beautiful
Smart
Thinking
It Was So Quiet, A Reservation Kind Of Quiet, Where You Can Hear Somebody Drinking Whiskey On The Rocks Three Miles Away.
Fear
Drinking
Rocks
Let Us Now Celebrate The Literary Allusion.
Celebrate
Allusion
I Suddenly Understood That If Every Moment Of A Book Should Be Taken Seriously, Then Every Moment Of A Life Should Be Taken Seriously As Well.
Book
Taken
Moments
I Didn't Know What To Say To Her. What Do You Say To People When They Ask How It Feels To Lose Everything? When Every Planet In Your Solar System Has Exploded?
People
Planets
Solar System
And Then I Realized That My Sister Was Trying To Live A Romance Novel. Man, That Takes Courage And Imagination. Well, It Also Took Some Degree Of Mental Illness, Too, But I Was Suddenly Happy For Her. And A Little Scared. Well, A Lot Scared.
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There's This Whole Notion Of Being An Indian - The Idea That "warrior" Is A Positive Description Of Us [indians As Native Americans]. When An Indian Guy Does Well, He's A Warrior, Even Now. He Could Be A Computer Salesman, But If He Does Well, He's A Warrior. I'm Not A Pacifist By Any Measure, But I'm Also Fully Aware That The Reasons I Might Go To War Could Be Very Dubious.
War
Native American
Ideas
When You Resort To Violence To Prove A Point, You’ve Just Experienced A Profound Failure Of Imagination.
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Imagination
Violence
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Orange Juice
Resentment
Bitter
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Jesus
Body
Bread
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Artist
Thinking
Want
How Self-centered, How Arrogant... Imagine The Awesome Privilege Of Living In A Society Where You Get To Choose What You Eat At Each And Every Meal. When I Was A Kid, I Was A Vegetarian And A Vegan For Long Stretches... I Was A Commodity Cheese-atarian.
Kids
Self
Long
Funny How A Little Politeness Can Change People's Minds.
People
Mind
Littles
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Thinking
Adults
Literature
That's The Whole Point Of Life, You Know? To Meet New People.
People
Meeting New People
Whole
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.
Sky
Telescopes
Study
We're All Travelling Heavy With Illusions.
Illusion
Heavy
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Book
Kids
Writing
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Teenager
Book
Writing
Sometimes It's Called Passing Out And Sometimes It's Just Pretending To Be Asleep
Sometimes
Pretending
Passing
Non-indian Writers Usually Say "great Spirit," "mother Earth," "two-legged, Four-legged, And Winged." Mixed-blood Writers Usually Say "creator, "mother Earth," "two-legged, Four- Legged, And Winged." Indian Writers Usually Say "god," "mother Earth," "human Being, Dog, And Bird."
Mother
Dog
Honesty
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Book
Beer
Defense
If You Care About Something Enough, It’s Going To Make You Cry. But You Have To Use It. Use Your Tears. Use Your Pain. Use Your Fear. Get Mad. Arnold, Get Mad.
Life
Pain
Mad
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Eye
Heart
Dark
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Sky
Parent
Drinking Would Shut Down My Seeing And My Hearing And My Feeling," She Used To Say. "why Would I Want To Be In The World If I Couldn't Touch The World With All Of My Senses Intact?
Drinking
Feelings
World
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Laughter
Tears
Knows
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Dirty
People
Dirty Talk
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Mystery
Tortillas
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Pieces
Thanks
If A Parent Doesn't Want His/her Child To Read A Book Then There Is Always An Alternative Text To Read. But The Book Banners Want To Control What Every Child Reads.
Children
Book
Parent
Spiritual Matters Should Be Private.
Spiritual
Matter
Should
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Writing
Hands
Washing
I Grabbed My Book And Opened It Up. I Wanted To Smell It. Heck, I Wanted To Kiss It. Yes, Kiss It. That's Right, I Am A Book Kisser. Maybe That's Kind Of Perverted Or Maybe It's Just Romantic And Highly Intelligent.
Book
Kissing
Intelligent
All I Try To Do Is Portray Indians As We Are, In Creative Ways. With Imagination And Poetry. I Think A Lot Of Native American Literature Is Stuck In One Idea: Sort Of Spiritual, Environmentalist Indians. And I Want To Portray Everyday Lives. I Think By Doing That, By Portraying The Ordinary Lives Of Indians, Perhaps People Learn Something New.
Spiritual
Native American
Thinking
I Wanted To Do A Weird Book And Reestablish My Independent, Small-press Roots.
Book
Independent
Roots
I Love To Scare The Already Terrified Assholes.
Scare
What Inspires A Poem For Me Is Usually A Moment.
Inspire
Moments
I'm Not A Pacifist By Any Measure, But I'm Also Fully Aware That The Reasons I Might Go To War Could Be Very Dubious.
War
Dubious
Might
The Librarian Spoke In A Reverential Whisper. Corliss Knew She'd Misjudged This Passionate Woman. Maybe She Dressed Poorly, But She Was Probably Great In Bed, Certainly Believed In God And Goodness, And Kept An Illicit Collection Of Overdue Library Books On Her Shelves.
Book
People
Judgement
The Dream He Needed Most Was The Dream That Frightened Him More.
Dream
Frightened
Needed
They've Been Screaming About The Death Of Literacy For Years, But I Think Tv Is The Gutenberg [printing] Press. I Think Tv Is The Only Thing That Keeps Us Vaguely In Democracy Even If It's In The Hands Of The Corporate Culture. If You're An Artist You Write In Your Time. Moaning About The Fact That Maybe People Read More Books A Hundred Years Ago - That's Not True. I Think The Same Percentage Has Always Read.
Book
Writing
Thinking
Unlike Landed White Men, She Didn't Need To Climb Mountains To Experience Mystic Panic. All She Needed Was To Set Her Alarm Dock For The Next Morning, Wake When It Rang, And Go To Class.
Morning
Men
White
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.
Girl
Dream
Fun
My Father Is An Amazing Man.
Father
Men
Amazing Man
My Father Was Always Depressed. When He Was Home And Sober, He Was Mostly In His Room.
Father
Home
Sober Up
Pain Is Never Added To Pain. It Multiplies.
Pain
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.
Fighting
Thinking
Form
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.
Beautiful
Mother
Father
I Ain't Interested In The Truth. I'm Interested In The Way Things Should Be.
Way
Should
I Got Hundreds Of Emails Insulting Me, Accusing Me Of Being Some Caveman. I Am By No Means A Luddite. I Have Two Ipods. I Have A Cell Phone. I Have Cable Tv, Hdtv!
Mean
Ipods
Accusing Me
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.
Radio
Poet
Turns
I'm A Method Writer. In Order To Write About The Emotion, I Have To Experience It. I Get Physically Tired And Exhausted, Devoting Hours And Hours And Hours To It.
Writing
Tired
Order
Like Any Good Shaman, Professional Baseball Player, Or Politician, My Mother Always Answered Questions With Questions.
Baseball
Mother
Player
Is God A Man Or A Woman? God Could Be An Armadillo. I Have No Idea.
Men
Ideas
Armadillos
If One Reads Enough Books, One Has A Fighting Chance.
Book
Fighting
Enough Chances
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.
Writing
Native American
Ironic
If You Let People Into Your Life A Little Bit, They Can Be Pretty Damn Amazing.
Inspiring
People
Littles
I Write Less About Alcohol, Less And Less And Less. You 're An Addict - So Of Course You Write About The Thing You Love Most. I Loved Alcohol The Most, Loved It More Than Anybody Or Anything. That's What I Wrote About. And It Certainly Accounted For Some Great Writing. But It Accounted For Two Or Three Years Of Good Writing - It Would Never Account For 20 Years Of Good Writing. I Would Have Turned Into Charles Bukowski. He Wrote 10,000 Poems And 10 Of Them Were Great.
Writing
Two
Years
I Realized That I Might Be A Lonely Indian Boy, But I Was Not Alone In The Loneliness. There Were Millions Of Other Americans Who Had Left Their Birthplaces In Search Of A Dream. (217)
Dream
Lonely
Loneliness
Since Jesus Was Human Then He Most Assuredly Farted And Burped. And If God Did Create Us In God's Image Then God Must Fart And Burp As Well.
Jesus
Fart
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.
Hate
Book
Boys
Writing Is A Lonely Business.
Lonely
Writing
What If Someone Picks On Me?" I Asked Then I'll Pick On Them". What If Someone Picks My Nose?" I Asked. The I'll Pick Your Nose, Too" Rowdy Said.
What If
Rowdy
Noses
We All Know The Indians Were Colonized By The Europeans, But Every Colonized Indian Has Been Colonized By The Indian Reaction To Colonization.
Reactions
Colonization
Knows
We All Have To Find Our Own Ways To Say Good-bye.
Bye
Way
Good Bye
I Don't Think The Revisionist Historians Are Accurate. I Think Their Agendas Are Clouded By Selfishness And Anger And Rage.
Thinking
Selfishness
Agendas
I Look More Indian When I'm Serious.
Looks
Serious
Indian
In The Middle Of A Crazy And Drunk Life, You Have To Hang Onto The Good And Sober Moments Tightly.
Crazy
Drunk
Sober
When Anybody, No Matter How Old They Are, Loses A Parent, I Think It Hurts The Same As If You Were Only Five Years Old, You Know? I Think All Of Us Are Always Five Years Old In The Presence And Absence Of Our Parents.
Hurt
Thinking
Years
When A Glass Sits On A Table Here, People Don't Wonder If It's Half Filled Or Half Empty. They Just Hope It's Good Beer.
Beer
Glasses
People
Also Because I'm Ambiguously Ethnic Looking, You Know, I Come To New York And I Can Be Anything. People Generally Think I'm Half Of Whatever They Are.
New York
Thinking
People
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.
White
World
Persons
The Poetry, If You Will, Of Life Is Reduced To This Sort Of Dry, Scientific, You Know, It's The Worst Sort Of Précis Of Who We Are.
Dry
Who We Are
Life Is
If You're Good At It, And You Love It, And It Helps You Navigate The River Of The World, Then It Can't Be Wrong.
Rivers
World
Helping
I Used To Sleep With My Books In Piles All Over My Bed And Sometimes They Were The Only Thing Keeping Me Warm And Always The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive. Books Are The Best And Worst Defense.
Book
Sleep
Bed
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?
Dream
Sweet
Smell
I Write In Blood Because I Remember What It Felt Like To Bleed.
Writing
Blood
Remember
My Name Is Sherman J. Alexie Jr., And I Am An Insomniac.
Names
Insomniac
It's Not Oil That Runs The World, It's Shame.
Running
Oil
World
A Lot Of People Have No Idea That Right Now Y.a. (young Adult). Is The Garden Of Eden Of Literature.
Garden
Ideas
Eden
All Art Is Exploitation.
Art
Art Is
Exploitation
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.
Night
Assumption
Cop
She Was In Pain And I Loved Her, Sort Of Loved Her, I Guess, So I Kind Of Had To Love Her Pain, Too.
Pain
Kind
Yep, My Daddy Was An Undependable Drunk. But He'd Never Missed Any Of My Organized Games, Concerts, Plays, Or Picnics. He May Not Have Loved Me Perfectly, But He Loved Me As Well As He Could. (189)
Games
Play
Daddy
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.
Father
Lying
Book
Nostalgia Is Always Doomed And Dooming.
Nostalgia
Doomed
When You Construct A Mix Tape, The First Song You Come Out With Has To Be A Barnburner.
Song
Tape
Firsts
My Books For Adults Had Been Previously Challenged And Banned So I'd Had Experience With It. I Always Find It Sad And Amusing: Sad To Think That Such Archaic And Potentially Dangerous Censorious Beliefs Still Exist, And Amused Because These Censors Only Make A Book More Powerful And Seductive When Trying To Ban It.
Powerful
Book
Thinking
What Kind Of Life Can You Have In A House Without Books?
Book
House
Kind
Well, As A Native, As A Colonized People You Do Live In The In Between. The Thing Is I'm Native. But Necessarily Because I'm A Member Of The Country, I'm Also A White American.
Country
White
People
She Told Me That Every Other Step Was Just For Me.' But That's Only Half Of The Dance,' I Said. Yeah,' My Father Said. 'she Was Keeping The Rest For Herself. Nobody Can Give Everything Away. It Ain't Healthy.
Father
Giving
Healthy
I Feel Like A Carton Of Eggs Holding Up An Elephant.
Eggs
Elephants
Feels
I Had The Feeling I Was Going To Be Successful, And I Didn't Want To Be Another Disappointing Indian.
Successful
Feelings
Want
He Wanted The Songs, The Stories, To Save Everybody.
Song
Stories
Wanted
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.
Positive
Damage Is Done
Wife
Corliss Had Never Once Considered The Fate Of Library Books. She'd Never Wondered How Many Books Go Unread. She Loved Books. How Could She Not Worry About The Unread? She Felt Like A Disorganized Scholar, An Inconsiderate Lover, An Abusive Mother, And A Cowardly Soldier.
Mother
Book
Fate
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.
Shoes
Luxury
Worry
It's A Weird Thing. Reservations Were Meant To Be Prisons, You Know? Indians Were Supposed To Move Onto Reservations And Die. We Were Supposed To Disappear. But Somehow Or Another, Indians Have Forgotten The Reservations Were Meant To Be Death Camps.
Moving
Were Meant To Be
Prison
I Believe In Any Kid's Ability To Read Any Book And Form Their Own Judgements. It's The Job Of A Parent To Guide His/her Child Through The Reading Of Every Book Imaginable. Censorship Of Any Form Punishes Curiosity.
Children
Book
Reading
I Don't Have To Participate In Another Culture's Ceremonies In Order To Respect That Culture.
Order
Culture
Ceremony
At Least Half The Country Thinks The Mascot Issue Is Insignificant. But I Think It's Indicative Of The Ways In Which Indians Have No Cultural Power. We're Still Placed In The Past. So We're Either In The Past Or We're Only Viewed Through Casinos.
Country
Past
Thinking
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.
Adventurous Life
Borders
Individual
The World, Even The Smallest Parts Of It, Is Filled With Things You Don't Know.
World
Filled
Smallest
Poetry = Anger X Imagination
Anger
Imagination
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