Quotessence
Home / Authors / Joseph Boyden
Joseph Boyden

Joseph Boyden Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleWantWorldAmericaDifferentImportantStoriesThinkingCanadaCourses

Famous Joseph Boyden Quotes

“Your grandfather was a hero in a war, girls. He wasn't a bad man or a weak man. Maybe he was too old to have a second family, a second wife and your mother and me, so many years after he lost his first. Maybe he was too old to fight anymore, and that's why he let me be taken away. I've thought about this for years and years. All I know is there are no heroes in this world. Not really. Just men and women who become old and tired and lose the strength to fight for what they love any longer.”

HeroesOld
Book:Through Black Spruce
Create image

“I passed the friendship centre and nodded to an old couple on the porch. Kookum smiled back and nodded, a cotton kerchief on her head. Moshum's eyes squinted, too, but never looked straight at me, just glanced my presence once, and that was enough. Old school. I knew that when they stood up to hobble home, he would lead a few feet ahead, and she would follow. They grew up in the bush and still walked the same way, as if the wide road was nothing more than a narrow path through the muskeg and spruce.”

First NationsCreeSpruce
Book:Through Black Spruce
Create image

“There's a few scholars that object to how the italicized sections suggest that Native people are to take some part in the blame for how colonization occurred. But I say, "Yes they are." Not nearly as much blame as the colonizers, of course. But we are not just victims. I hate this idea that we are all just victimized and oppressed and etcetera etcetera. It's dehumanizing in its own way.”

PeopleWayIdeasHateCoursesObjectsI HateVictimBlameNativeScholarOppressedSectionsColonizationEtcetera
Author:Joseph Boyden
Create image