Windigo Island Quotes

“In every human being, there are two wolves constantly fighting. One is fear, and the other is love. When Cork had asked which of the wolves won the battle, Meloux’s answer had been: The one you feed. Always the one you feed.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Grief doesn’t come in the moment of loss. It comes in the quiet of the aftermath.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“The devil's best defense is a person's disbelief in his existence.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Being Indian is living with a wound that’s never healed. The violence, the alcoholism, the unemployment—White people think that's who we are, who we've always been, that somehow we deserve this. No matter how many of us they see who don't fit that image, they continue to believe it. And you want to know the worst thing? A lot of Indians believe it too.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Men never talked. Not about themselves, anyway, not really. They talked about what they'd done, what they were doing, what they intended to do, but they didn't talk about what was at the heart of them, why they did these things.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“And that was, Cork knew, the advantage of real evil. On the surface, it often looked so ordinary. It was only when you finally cut your way to the heart of the darkness that you saw the ugly thing the ordinary smile masked.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Grief doesn't come in the moment of loss. It comes in the quiet of the aftermath...she didn't feel grief. In a way, what she felt was emptiness. Her mind told her he was dead. Her heart was not there yet.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Not forget. Accept. We do what we can, and then we let go and accept that the hand of Kitchimanidoo, the Great Mystery, is at work in all things. In you, me, Mariah, this shining big water. And even in this Windigo, though we may not understand how this is so.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Grandfather, sacred one,
Teach us love, compassion, and honor,
That we may heal the earth
And heal one another.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“...she couldn't help wondering what became of human beings who lived too long without beauty.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“One kind thing is the seed from which a great goodness grows. It is not hope we hold to, Niece. It is belief in the power of that growing goodness.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“called Shattered Hearts: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of American Indian Women and Girls in Minnesota. In 2011 the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition in conjunction with Prostitution Research and Education published their own report, titled Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota. These”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“The whole smallpox on a blanket thing. Bounties on our scalps. The government schools, which were really an attempt to drive the Indian out of us and to get free labor in the bargain.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Sometimes the tears that parents shed over their lost children couldn’t be trusted.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“Tell her this. I will help, but my help comes at a price. She must bring me her daughter’s most precious possession, and she must bring it herself. When she has done this, I will do what I can for her.”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

“What you did is done,” Meloux said gently. “What you were is not what you are and not what you will be. Rest, child. You are safe now.” Cork”
― William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island