A Quote by Sherman Alexie

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.

Sherman Alexie

Quote Topics

Another Camps Death Death Camps Die Disappear Forgotten Indians Know Meant Meant To Be Move Move On Onto Prisons Reservations Somehow Supposed Thing Weird Weird Thing Were Were Meant To Be

Quote Author

Sherman Alexie
American - Novelist
Born: October 7, 1966

The Indians had to be either killed, or herded into reservations, which were essentially concentration camps, and forgotten. Their history had to be absolutely obliterated so that we could believe that we were living on virgin soil.

Richard Rodriguez

Indians were frequently off their reservations.

Buffalo Bill

One was a horrible case called Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe which denied tribes the right to criminally prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on their reservations. That decision has had horrible consequences for law enforcement on Indian reservations. But in that opinion Justice William Rehnquist cites language from the 1830s to explain why whites didn't trust tribes to exercise criminal jurisdiction. They were savages.

Robert A. Williams, Jr.

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.

Sherman Alexie

The townspeople outside the reservations had a very superior attitude toward Indians, which was kind of funny, because they weren't very wealthy; they were on the fringes of society themselves.

James Welch

It's strange: We leave the movie having enjoyed its conclusion so much that we almost forgot our earlier reservations. But they were there, and they were real.

Roger Ebert

It is said that Indians were sometimes named for the first thing they saw when they were born. Makes you wonder why there aren't more Indians named Hairy Pussy, doesn't it?

George Carlin

The Indians, however, could not migrate from one part of the United States to another; neither could they obtain employment as readily as white people, either upon or beyond the Indian reservations.

Nelson A. Miles

You were everything, everything that I wanted. We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it. And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away. All this time you were pretending. So much for my happy ending.

Avril Lavigne

...you found you were saying yes when you meant no, and “We’ve got to be together in this thing” when you meant the very opposite ... and then you were face to face, in total darkness, with the knowledge that you didn’t know who you were. And how could anyone else be blamed for that?

Richard Yates

Once befriended, our shadow becomes a divine map that-when properly read and followed-reconn ects us to the life we were meant to live, the people we were meant to be, and the contributions we were meant to give.

Debbie Ford

In Israel, it always meant - and a lot of that is still true - there was only one kind of man you could be, there were no alternatives, no options. If you were from a good family, you were supposed to be a successful soldier at 18 and be strong, and prepared to protect your wife and family, or family and children, and be prepared to die for your country.

Eytan Fox

If things aren't as successful as you thought they would be, sometimes that's not the worst thing that can happen. Sometimes that can be the best thing to push you in another direction that you were supposed to go in. Or to have an experience that you were supposed to have to grow.

Erin Davie

Ialways think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during the first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians. So I'm never quite sure why we eat Turkey like everybody else. (101)

Sherman Alexie

Anybody can be a runner. We were meant to move. We were meant to run. It's the easiest sport.