Katherena Vermette > Quotes

“The dead don't hang on, the living do. The dead don't have anything to hang on to. Our bodies become nothing, and we just float around the people who love us. We go back to nothing. That is all we ever were or should ever be.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“But even in sleep, her ghosts all hunt her down, wanting her to look at them, remember them.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“Cocoon

cocooned in
winter white
I slip beside you
breathe deep

if you listen
you can hear the snow
change
shift slow to spring
poised for melt

cloaked under
white winter
I lie beside you
breathe out

if you listen
you can hear
wet wings unfurl
like petals
ready to be
born”
― Katherena Vermette, River Woman

“I don't know if I can be with someone who doesn't understand.' Her young face rests on her knee, looking away.

'Then you will be alone, and that will be fine.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“She holds me, warm, soft. It's the kind of moment that is its own story without words.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“Truth is a seed
planted deep
If you want to get it
you have to dig.”
― Katherena Vermette, River Woman

“He wants the simplicity of finality, but it’s never like it is in the movies. It always lingers on. Like a song that ends a beat or two before it’s supposed to, it feels like there should be more but there’s nothing, just an empty space and a long, fading echo.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“I am the light breath and wind around you. I am the knowing that you are never really all alone. You are all of my strength and none of my weakness. You are the dream my life made.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“I don't know if she knows yet, that men are good, strong, amazing and ordinary, but not everything. They can't be. They are too busy doing other things.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“We are fighting. This is fighting.' My arms flail out to take in the whole scene, my mother, my sister, my niece. These tough women.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“Summer was always the worst season. Everyone always complained about winter, but winter was simple, you just didn't go outside. Summer always tried to sneak in where it was not wanted.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Strangers

“But I know I have my people. I can feel them, even when they go away. It means so much to have people. It is everything. I have been so fortunate.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“Anishnaabemowin

I take out the book
at night when
we sit together
quiet
I want to learn the language
I should have known
my tongue trips
over double vowels
like feet
in shoes too big

I remember
words as
intangible as
dreams
so real
at night
but I can't quite
grasp them
in the day”
― Katherena Vermette, River Woman

“It never feels like home until you are here.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“This is what happens when you disrespect the women of Red River.”
― Katherena Vermette, This Place: 150 Years Retold

“Girls don’t get attacked in good neighbourhoods.' Kookoo looks right back, just as hard, no harder, even with her near-blind eyes. 'My Stella, girls get attacked everywhere.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“We’re fucked up but not fucked.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“Laugh at their ignorance if you will, but they make a mockery of our respectability. I don’t trust the lot of them.”
― Katherena Vermette, This Place: 150 Years Retold

“I know. I saw how you got treated. Hell, I saw how my father treated you. Thing is, though, I don’t feel different from them. Not any of them, any of you. I see them and they remind me of you, of your sisters, of me. They’re the people who look like me. They’re the only people that look like you.' 'They’re your people, that’s why.”
― Katherena Vermette, The Break

“Competition, I can handle. Swindling and treachery, I would rather do without.”
― Katherena Vermette, This Place: 150 Years Retold