InspiringQuotes

Joseph Boyden Quotes:

Joseph Boyden quotes

Ocupation: Novelist

Life: b. October 31, 1966

Birthday: October 31

famous quotes

When I die, nieces, I want to be cremated, my ashes taken up in a bush plane and sprinkled onto the people in town below. Let them think my body is snowflakes, sticking in their hair and on their shoulders like dandruff.

source: - Joseph Boyden (2009). “Through Black Spruce: A Novel”, p.40, Penguin

Topics: Niece, Taken, Thinking

quote the history needs to serve the story not the story the history but at the same time joseph boyden Quotes

The world is a different place in this new century, [...]. And we are a different people. My visions still come but no one listens any longer to what they tell us, what they warn us. I knew even as a young woman that destruction bred on the horizon. [...] War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth.

Topics: Spring, War, People, Young Women, Different Place

We aren't the masters of the earth. We're the servants.

source: - Joseph Boyden (2014). “The Orenda: A novel”, p.159, Vintage

Topics: Earth, Masters, Servant

I say that humans are the only ones in this world that need everything within it. but there is nothing in the world that needs us for its survival. We aren't the masters of the earth. We're the servants.

Topics: Survival, Needs, World

The history needs to serve the story, not the story the history. But at the same time you can't stray too far.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Needs, Stories

Sometimes, it's not getting what we want that offers us the most important Lessons

source: - Joseph Boyden (2014). “The Orenda: A novel”, p.64, Vintage

Topics: Important, Lessons, Want, Important Lessons

I believe truly that Canada is a living history and we're going through some of the most important time in this country's short 150 years.

source: - Source: www.cbc.ca

Topics: Believe, Important, I Believe

The beliefs of Native people are no less powerful or important just because they focus on a different "form of magic."

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Powerful, People, Focus

People will say that Canada, unlike America, was not birthed from violence. But I want to say, "What are you talking about?" It's just not true.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Talking, America, People

There's the concept that dreams are as important - if not more important - than reality. The attention that one pays to those things in the shadows is very much a part of the Indian experience.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Dream, Reality, Shadow

Being a mixed-blood person of Ojibway and European ancestry, I always found that I only heard one side of the story - that was the conquerers' side, the side of the French Jesuit missionaries that came to live in what is now Ontario.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Blood, Ontario, Stories, Jesuit

America seems to celebrate its more violent past, but Canada doesn't like to recognize those things. The willingness to accept the existence of violence separates our two countries.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Country, Past, Two, Two Countries

I'm fascinated by the magic realism used by many writers. I think it goes hand-in-hand with the Indian experience. It's a very different way of viewing the world.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Thinking, Magic Realism, Hands

I never want to play down to the reader. I think readers are willing to go along if they're intrigued.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Thinking, Play, Want

Fascinating, often hilarious, always devastatingly truthful, The Inconvenient Indian is destined to become a classic of historical narrative. For those who wish to better understand Native peoples, it is a must read. For those who don't wish to understand, it is even more so.

Topics: Historical, Wish, Narrative, Inconvenient

There’s something sexy in cooking for a man who likes my food. Am I growing up?

source: - Joseph Boyden (2009). “Through Black Spruce: A Novel”, p.258, Penguin

Topics: Sexy, Growing Up, Men

I'm a writer. I should be allowed to speak about my writing at times. And I'm really excited to speak about that. There's nothing I am shameful of or anything else in my novels. They are my children and I'm happy to speak about my children.

source: - Source: www.cbc.ca

Topics: Children, Writing, Speak

There were incredibly complex societies already existing in North America long before Europeans arrived. So many people think that before European contact it was just Natives huddling around a fire, waiting for civilization to come save them. But that was not the case.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Thinking, Fire, Civilization, North America

As a fiction writer, of course, you need to take some leeway with certain aspects of history to make the story work.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Needs, Fiction, Stories

During World War I the Canadians were the shock troops. In many historical cases, Canadians have been very proficient at killing, and doing what we have to in order to survive. But no one wants to acknowledge that fact.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: War, Order, Historical

Canada and America are very, very different. It's true that we share a language and many customs. But Americans have a very different view of the world.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Views, America, Different

Compared to Americans, Canadians are often more gentle in their approach to things. They're much more apologetic. There's less room for conflict.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Rooms, Conflict, Apologetic

I'm intrigued by the classic Greek tragedies, as well as by the idea of the Greek chorus.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Ideas, Greek, Tragedy, Greek Chorus, Greek Tragedy

We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy.

source: - Joseph Boyden (2006). “Three Day Road”, p.261, Penguin

Topics: Fighting, Two, Enemy

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Hate, Ideas, People, Etcetera, Colonization

From a craft standpoint, telling a story in the first-person present tense over the course of 500 pages is a daunting challenge.

Topics: Challenges, Stories, Crafts, Standpoint, Present Tense

Related Authors

Alice Munro quotes

Alice Munro
Alissa York quotes

Alissa York
Alistair MacLeod quotes

Alistair MacLeod
Ami McKay quotes

Ami McKay
Ann-Marie MacDonald quotes

Ann-Marie MacDonald
Anne Michaels quotes

Anne Michaels
Camilla Gibb quotes

Camilla Gibb
Cathy Marie Buchanan quotes

Cathy Marie Buchanan
Craig Davidson quotes

Craig Davidson
David Adams Richards quotes

David Adams Richards
David Gilmour quotes

David Gilmour
Drew Hayden Taylor quotes

Drew Hayden Taylor
Eden Robinson quotes

Eden Robinson
Elizabeth Hay quotes

Elizabeth Hay
Esi Edugyan quotes

Esi Edugyan
Gordon Downie quotes

Gordon Downie
Ivan E. Coyote quotes

Ivan E. Coyote
James Lee Burke quotes

James Lee Burke
Jane Urquhart quotes

Jane Urquhart
John Burnham Schwartz quotes

John Burnham Schwartz
John Ralston Saul quotes

John Ralston Saul
John Vaillant quotes

John Vaillant
Kathleen Winter quotes

Kathleen Winter
Lawrence Hill quotes

Lawrence Hill
Lee Maracle quotes

Lee Maracle
Louis Bayard quotes

Louis Bayard
Lynn Coady quotes

Lynn Coady
Margaret Atwood quotes

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Laurence quotes

Margaret Laurence
Marian Engel quotes

Marian Engel
Mary Lawson quotes

Mary Lawson
Michael Crummey quotes

Michael Crummey
Michael Ondaatje quotes

Michael Ondaatje
Miriam Toews quotes

Miriam Toews
Noah Richler quotes

Noah Richler
Rawi Hage quotes

Rawi Hage
Shyam Selvadurai quotes

Shyam Selvadurai
Steven Galloway quotes

Steven Galloway
Terry Fallis quotes

Terry Fallis
Thomas King quotes

Thomas King
Timothy Findley quotes

Timothy Findley
Tom Franklin quotes

Tom Franklin
Tomson Highway quotes

Tomson Highway
Vincent Lam quotes

Vincent Lam
Will Ferguson quotes

Will Ferguson
Yann Martel quotes

Yann Martel
Heather O'Neill quotes

Heather O'Neill
Linden MacIntyre quotes

Linden MacIntyre
Michael O'Brien quotes

Michael O'Brien

Authors starting with Letter

Topics starting with Letter