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"It's hard to be optimistic on the reservation. 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" (Alexie 49).

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"It's hard to be optimistic on the reservation. 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" (Alexie 49).

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The narrator expresses that for he and others, "it's hard to be optimistic on the reservation," a result of the lack of ambitious or successful Native American role models in their society. Because expectations are so low that Native American children aren't even anticipated to graduate high school, Native Americans "don't wonder" if there is hope for a brighter future or not. Instead of viewing "the glass" as "half filled or half empty," they only care if the glass is filled with "good beer," a symbol for the alcoholism that Native Americans often turn to when they lose their optimism.

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"From our chairs made rockers by unsteady legs, we could see that the only traffic signal on the reservation had stopped working." (Alexie 44)

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"From our chairs made rockers by unsteady legs, we could see that the only traffic signal on the reservation had stopped working." (Alexie 44)

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"In the outside world, a person can be a hero one second and a nobody the next" (Alexie 48).

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"In the outside world, a person can be a hero one second and a nobody the next" (Alexie 48).

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The narrator highlights how somebody can be considered a "hero" for a short time, much like a shooting star. They are relevant and important for what seems like a second and then they disappear.  Shooting stars generally representpeople wishing for hope that their dreams can come true, but once it disappears it no longer has the same effect. They leave hope for people that life can be a better place, while at the same time leaving them with uncertantiy.

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"But it's almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language and land rights. It's the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn't take an order, Tonto, and Washington Redskins" (Alexie 49).

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"But it's almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language and land rights. It's the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn't take an order, Tonto, and Washington Redskins" (Alexie 49).

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The narrator shows in this quote how Native Indians survive the big things but it's the little things that serve as reminders that point in the direction that Native Indians are still getting treated differently because of who they are and can get hurt by things that are done/said. The "waitress not taking an order" because a person is Native Indian suggests that they are being treated differently and haven't been fully integrated into the society. The use of ""Washington Redskins" is an example of how the term "Redskins" can be offensive to Native Indians.

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"But it's almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language

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"But it's almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language

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Alexis suggests oppression, no social mobility, deferred dreams broken.

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"Survival= Anger x Imagination. Imagination Is the only weapon on the reservation."(Alexie 150)

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"Survival= Anger x Imagination. Imagination Is the only weapon on the reservation."(Alexie 150)

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Alexie suggests

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How do we imagine a new life when a pocketful of quarters weighs our possibilities down?" (Alexie 152)

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How do we imagine a new life when a pocketful of quarters weighs our possibilities down?" (Alexie 152)

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The narrator illustrates how "a pocketful of quarters" is the the solution to the challenges facing the community. Money is tied to a "new life", but this tool for renewal is unable to rescue the community. The symbolic representation of quarters that have the

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"How do we imagine a new life when a pocketful of quarters weighs our possibilities down?"

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"What happens when our heroes don't even know how to pay their bills" (Alexie 49). 

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"What happens when our heroes don't even know how to pay their bills" (Alexie 49). 

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In Sherman Alexie's "The Only Traffic Signal On The Reservation That Doesn't Flash Red Anymore" it is implied that Native American children's heroes come from the reservation and that these "heroes" can't even support themselves let alone teach someone how to live. They have the potential to become successful but due to the fact that none of their "heroes" are able to really help them grow, there is a cycle in the reservation that youth there is often limited by their lack of strong leaders. This is why many of those who live in the reservation have become disillusioned with the futures of the children in the reservation.

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“Hell, there’s been one or two guys who played just a few minutes of one game, just enough to show what they could have been” (Alexie 44).

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“Hell, there’s been one or two guys who played just a few minutes of one game, just enough to show what they could have been” (Alexie 44).

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The narrator shows in this quote that the focus of many of the role models on the reservation isn't on what they were, but on what they could have been. Many of them stood out just for a moment before falling into the background again, but were talked about for years after because of the potential they had at the time. This is a theme seen throughout the book; fantasizing about what could have been to escape what is.

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"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" (Alexie "The Only Traffic Signal").

With this quote, Alexie emphasizes just how desensitized Native Americans have become in today's United States. They're far past the point of traditional optimism or pessimism usually indicated by the 'glass half full' idiom. They no longer "wonder," they don't hope or expect the best or the worst, all they expect is  "beer" that can temporarily numb their problems. Alexie points out this need for anything at all that can serve as a tourniquet for the issues Native Americans have had to deal with, highlighting issues such as feelings of cultural isolation, lack of opportunity, and amissing sense of identity.

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"Survival = Anger x Imagination.  Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation" (Alexie 150).

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"Survival = Anger x Imagination.  Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation" (Alexie 150).

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The narrator's statement that "survival" is the product of "anger" and "imagination" takes a look at the reservation mentality for indians. Survival is the primarygoal. His statement that "imagination is the only weapon on the reservation" suggests that it is the only controllable factor indians have because anger is a given. The word "weapon" implies that there is some sort of fight going on.

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"Hey we don't drink no more, remember? How about a diet pepsi" (Alexie 66)?
Victor attempts to fight off his addiction/disease with soda instead of liquor.

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The contempt that follows the quote, in the paragraph, attacks many aspects of American culture. There is not only a disdain for the U.S., but a position that claims that that American culture has destroyed Native American culture. It is an old idea, a knowledge that the American indian's have had to be pressed under the weight of a new world that's invaded them. They have no words of their own, and have only suffered. That dismissive statement, the quote, does say it all; they have to celebrate, or are at least expected to, their own hell.

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"Believe me, everything looks like a noose if you stare at it long enough" (Alexie 178).

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"Believe me, everything looks like a noose if you stare at it long enough" (Alexie 178).

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The narrator, Victor, makes this conclusion after a member of his community committed suicide via automobile despite having a good job and family. Victor implies that underneath every aspect of their lives on the reservation there are negative implications that emerge if thought about. From alcoholism and welfare to millions of slaughters ancestors, their reality was created for them by the US government. Comparing these living conditions to contemplating a noose draws attention to the concepts of suicide, murder, and systematic "justice" by authority, all of which have had catastrophic tolls on native history and remain in natives' consciences to this day. Furthermore, the definition for noose also mentions the trapping of animals. As their living conditions are a direct result of white colonization, natives stare at their surroundings until everything appears to be designed by their trap. No matter how many achievements are gained, every aspect of their life appears as a noose tied by white hands if observed too closely.

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"I was born a goofy reservation mixed drink, and my father needed me just as much as he needed every other kind of drink" (Alexie 27).

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"I was born a goofy reservation mixed drink, and my father needed me just as much as he needed every other kind of drink" (Alexie 27).

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The narrator's suggestion that he "was born a goofy reservation mixed drink" emphasizes not only his "goofy" awkwardness  and his Native American "reservation" roots, but his deep entwinement with alcohol from birth. He underlines how much his father "needed" him, repeating the word twice in the sentence, and suggesting it is analogous to alcoholism. He thus intimates that his experience of paternal love finds its source in his father's neediness, in some significant lack or absence, rather than deriving from a healthy wholeness.