Quotes from The Toughest Indian in the World

Sherman Alexie ·  238 pages

Rating: (6.1K votes)


“He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“If it's fiction, then it better be true.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“Instead, I woke early the next morning, before sunrise, and went out into the world. I walked past my car. I stepped onto the pavement, still warm from the previous day’s sun. I started walking. In bare feet, I traveled upriver toward the place where I was born and will someday die. At that moment, if you had broken open my heart you could have looked inside and seen the thin white skeletons of one thousand salmon.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“Sometimes, she wondered what she was missing, if her life was somehow incomplete because she didn't see the reflection of her face in the face of a son or daughter. Maybe. That's what mothers told her: Oh, you don't know what you're missing; it's spiritual; I feel closer to the earth, to the creator of all things. Perhaps all of that was true--it must be true--but Grace also knew that mothering was work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. She'd known too many women who'd vanished after childbirth; women whose hopes and fears had been pushed to the back of the family closet; women who'd magically been replaced by their children and their children's desires.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World



“Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love--it just happens!--but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit. Of course you chose who you loved. If you didn't choose, you ended up with what was left--the drunks and abusers, the debtors and vacuums, the ones who ate their food too fast or had never read a novel. Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. Yet, year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“Like a good Indian, he knew when to talk and when to remain silent. Like a good Indian, he knew there was never a good time to talk.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“Oh, no, no, you've got that all wrong. You're not required to respect elders. After all, most people are idiots, regardless of age. In tribal cultures, we just make sure that elders remain an active part of the culture, even if they're idiots. Especially if they're idiots. You can't just abandon your old people, even if they have nothing intelligent to say. Even if they're crazy.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“What do you have to worry about? That you're lonely? That you have a mortgage? That your wife doesn't love you? F you, F you. I have to worry about having enough to eat!”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“You have to treat your car with love. And I don’t mean love of an object. You see, that’s just wrong. That’s materialism. You have to love your car like it’s sentient being, like it can love you back. Now, that’s some deep-down agape love.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World



“world. Put down your fucking guns and pick up your kids.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“Seymour looked around the Tucson McDonald's. There were white people and Mavajos; there were people who preferred their Quarter Pounders with cheese and those who didn't care for cheese at all; and there were those who desperately wish that McDonald's would introduce onion rings to its menu.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“Inside their small house, Grace listened as Roman stood from the couch and walked into the bathroom. He sat down to piss. She thought that Roman’s sit-down pisses were one of the most romantic and caring things that any man had ever done for any woman. After”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“He was a white man and, therefore, he was allowed to be romantic.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


“Whites and Indians laughed at most of the same jokes, but they laughed for different reasons.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World



“How often had men sat around dinner tables and discussed women’s lives, their choices, and the reasons why one woman reached across the bed to touch another woman?”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from The Toughest Indian in the World


About the author

Sherman Alexie
Born place: in Spokane, Washington, The United States
Born date October 7, 1966
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“All media work us over completely.”
― Marshall McLuhan, quote from The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects


“I'd do anything for you. You know that?" he whispered into my ear. "If you fell, I'd hold you. If you were afraid, I'd wrap my arms around you and take away your fears. I'd die to keep you safe but more than anything I'd do whatever it takes to keep you by my side. For you I'd conquer anything, everything, anytime.”
― J.C. Reed, quote from Conquer Your Love


“澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理UniSA毕业证南澳大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证University of South Australia澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理UniSA毕业证南澳大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证University of South Australia澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理UniSA毕业证南澳大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证University of South Australia澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理UniSA毕业证南澳大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证University of South Australia澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理UniSA毕业证南澳大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证University of South Australia澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理UniSA毕业证南澳大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证University of South Australia澳洲毕业证澳洲学历文凭原版制作Q/微981497266办理UniSA毕业证南澳大学毕业证成绩单真实学历学位认证University of South Australia”
― Jeff Kinney, quote from The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary


“To hear them laugh was to hear that everything was all right, but to see them laugh was to see otherwise”
― David Finkel, quote from The Good Soldiers


“It is, therefore, necessary to be suspicious of those who seek to convince us with means other than reason, and of charismatic leaders: we must be cautious about delegating to others our judgement and our will. Since it is difficult to distinguish true prophets from false, it is as well to regard all prophets with suspicion. It is better to renounce revealed truths, even if they exalt us by their splendor of if we find them convenient because we can acquire them gratis. It is better to content oneself with other more modest and less exiting truths, those one acquires painfully, little by little and without shortcuts, with study, discussion, and reasoning, those that can we verified and demonstrated.”
― Primo Levi, quote from If This Is a Man / The Truce


Interesting books

Ugly Love
(127K)
Ugly Love
by Colleen Hoover
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
(369.2K)
The Ocean at the End...
by Neil Gaiman
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
(19K)
A River Runs Through...
by Norman Maclean
A Passage to India
(56.8K)
A Passage to India
by E.M. Forster
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
(176.6K)
To All the Boys I've...
by Jenny Han
Lover Enshrined
(96.2K)
Lover Enshrined
by J.R. Ward

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.