Like officer Dave.He's never said much about his life, but I can tell he's scarred. And he knows I'm scarred too. The wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that those who have experienced pain can intuitively recognize similar scars in others.
Sherman Alexie's quote reflects the connection between individuals who have endured trauma or suffering. It implies that shared experiences of pain create a bond, allowing people to recognize and empathize with each other's struggles, even in silence. The notion of 'the wounded recognizing the wounded' highlights the profound understanding and solidarity among those who have faced hardship, emphasizing the importance of empathy and connection in human relationships.
In practice
In a support group setting, to explain the bond between members who have shared similar experiences.
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.
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.
I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it. If I draw a cartoon of a flower, then every man, woman, and child in the world can look at it and say, "That's a flower.
We all have to find our own ways to say good-bye.
I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don't write to protect them. It's far too late for that. I write to give them weapons-in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.
A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.
Helping others is the way we help ourselves.
Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.
After the discovery in 1918 of love letters revealing that Franklin was involved with Lucy Mercer: The bottom dropped out of my own particular world, I faced myself, my surroundings, my world, honestly for the first time.
Proclaim the beauty and truth of the Christian message to a society which is tangent by confusing presentations of sexuality, marriage and the family.
A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages.
The bond with a dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth can ever be.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.