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!

I got in a fight with my girlfriend," I said. "I was just driving around, blowing off steam, you know?" Well, you should be more careful where you drive," the officer said. "You're making people nervous. You don't fit the profile of the neighborhood." I wanted to tell him that I didn't fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble.

You can't sustain [anger]. You become bitter. Nothing's going to change. Anger leads to resentment, then to spiking your orange juice, then to martyrdom.

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.

...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

If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything.

My career means, if you're a non-Indian writing about Indians, at least there's one Indian in your rearview mirror.