Jesse Thistle Quotes

Mom used to think I was mute, but I could speak fine, I just chose not to. My words belonged to me, they were the only thing I had that were mine, and I didn’t trust anyone enough to share them.

All us criminals start out as normal people just like anyone else, but then things happen in life that tear us apart, that makes us into something capable of hurting other people. That's all any of the darkness really is—just love gone bad. We're just broken-hearted people hurt by life.

The way that Canadians understood homelessness by the Canadian definition was about not having a house to live. I realize that it was more about a dispossession from something called 'all my relations' which is an Indigenous worldview where everything is interrelated, interconnected.

I longed to be part of something again. To be known and accepted. To hear my name. No one ever said my name anymore. I never told anyone who I was for fear of being found out. For what? I didn’t know. I had forgotten years ago. I slumped forward on the bench and held my head in my hands, trying to remember how my name sounded. I spelled it aloud to myself. J-E-S-S-E. Jesse.

Whatever the reason, I came to the realization that I'd earned my way here and that I had the right to chase my dreams. That even I deserved a second chance.

Berries, Kokum said, knew well their role as life-givers, and we had to honour and respect that. We did that by knowing our role as responsible harvesters, picking only what we needed and leaving the rest for our animal kin so they could feed themselves and their young. That was our pact, she said, and if we followed it, they'd never let us down.

My grandmother got sick, the woman that raised me and she was kind of my world, the only person that mattered to me. She made me promise her that I would get an education and, stop being an idiot basically.

my soul is still homeless sometimes in between slumber and consciousness i sleepwalk. my mind not yet aware i shuffle out the front door the crisp open air and night sky still call me. at night in between slumber and consciousness i sleepwalk. my soul not yet aware that my wanderings are over and I have a home.

It lit me up to see my name, "Jesse Thistle," alongside "University of Ottawa." I'd done something significant. I'd actually achieved something in my life. I didn't have a driver's license, ID, a proper high school education, a health card, nothing—but there was this completion certificate that had "university" with my name under it!

It was the community around me and the relationships and the love that people gave me that got me off the streets. We need to do that for Indigenous people, we need to empower Indigenous voices and Indigenous knowledge so they can get off the streets themselves and be the people they're supposed to be in society, so they can contribute in a good way.

This is why I never judge someone who is trying to reconnect. We are all just trying to grab anything to find ourselves, even greasy feathers at Rotten Ronnies.

My methodology is rooted in love. I never meant to keep my experiences private.

I remember when I was 15 feeling the weight of that oppression, but not knowing what it was. I felt resentful, almost hateful. I started to take crack cocaine to take the edge off. I do see a lot of connectivity between my story and those of others with my background.

The world screamed past me. I lived amongst the Ewok shadows; I groaned misery and shifted as they did. I longed to be part of something again, to be known and accepted, to hear my name. No one ever said my name anymore. I never told anyone who I was for fear of being found out. For what? I didn't know. I'd forgotten years ago.

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I learned that you've got to do your best in whatever you do, even if it's smashing potatoes and washing dishes, and even if you job leaves you stinking like a giant rotten potato and you look like a lopsided sea crustacean after a while, because every chance you get in life deserves respect, and so do the people who took chances on you

All of it is worth it -- to be someone's ancestor. To see the generations across her face through the life, the body, of this tiny little girl before me

Love is shit, cleaning other's shit is love.

Have courage, dear grandson,' you said, your eyes meeting mine, 'we'll beat this cancer yet.' Many years after it took you, a part of me still thinks you can beat it. A part of me knows that you did.

The granduer of life is apparent in all the little details.

People often ask me how I survived to achieve such greatness (And by greatness I simply meant to be better than one was yesterday), and I have avoided sharing my shield until this very moment. But this was how. And now I gif you the fallen warrior's shield (even though you always had it), so you, too, can write your own poetry like I have done, and so you, too, can overcome and be who you are supposed to be.