Where the Spirit Lives (1989)

Ann-Marie MacDonald: Kathleen

Quotes 

• Kathleen : And they've been brutalized! Now just how am I to get the trust and respect of those children when they think I'm about to beat them silly at any moment?

• Kathleen : You must find it very satisfying to be helping these poor children get a good education. Learn to read and write and have a wider understanding of the world?

  Taggert : Did they tell you anything about this school or about teaching the Indians?

  Kathleen : Yes, of course. It's a fine Christian institution doing God's work and the children - well, children are the same anywhere. They need love, patience and careful guidance... And just why are you grinning at me like a great ape?

  Taggert : Well, ma'am, it's just been a long while since I heard horse dung piled so pretty.

  Kathleen : Well thanks be to God that a cynical man like yourself is not teaching these poor children!

  Taggert : Thanks be to God. I wouldn't have the stomach for it.

• Reverend Buckley : I imagine you've already been imbued with Mr. Babcock's liberal vision of education for our little brown children of the prarie?

  Kathleen : Well, yes he...

  Reverend Buckley : The fact is a liberal approach isn't very effective in our work here. It's kindness that only prolongs despair. These children come to us from a dead culture. It's like a noose thrown around their necks, our job is to remove this terrible burden and give them their freedom. I'm sure if you understand that, you'll find your work here very rewarding, indeed.

• Reverend Buckley : Kathleen, believe me, I do understand the frustrations you feel. At first, well, the past seems almost insurmountable doesn't it? You know, I think that's why I took up gardening. These are all wildflowers, all local. Magazines have come to take photographs, yes.

  Kathleen : Yes, they're lovely...

  Reverend Buckley : Of course there - there nothing but weeds. Out there in the wild they grow in repugnant profusion. But here, in the confines of a carefully tended garden, well, you can see how beautifully they grow! Of course they don't transplant easily. They take more time, patience and work than domestic flowers. I've found, after I gather them, that I must first scrape every trace of the old soil from their roots and plant them in fertile, new earth. Water them well, weed them and cut them back often or they will return to the wild.

  Kathleen : Reverend Buckley... I'm talking about children, thinking, feeling creatures.

  Reverend Buckley : I assure you Kathleen, I assure you, so am I.

• Kathleen : I'll be civil to you Mr. Taggert but I'd rather kiss a skunk.

  [catching herself under mistletoe] 

• Komi : It happened!

  Kathleen : What?

  Komi : Just now, I'm bleeding, it just happened.

  Kathleen : Shh. Amelia that's not the sort of thing you tell everyone. That's a very private thing.

  Komi : But you have to tell me what the ritual is, the White ritual, to become a woman. You have to help me!

  Kathleen : Well, there is no ritual dear. That sort of thing's all a part of your old ways. You're a Christian now.

• Kathleen : Amelia.

  Komi : That is not my name. My name is Astokomi. And you are a liar.

  Kathleen : Komi.

  Komi : Nothing you can say is gonna make me go back there. We are going home!

  Kathleen : I didn't come here to take you back. I came to ask you to forgive me. Will you take these?

  [hands her books] 

  Kathleen : They're not lies. Maybe someday you and I will...

  [Astokomi exchanges a gift and leaves]