32+ N. Scott Momaday Quotes On Family, Nature And Mom And Dad

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Top 10 N. Scott Momaday Quotes

  1. I wonder if, in the dark night of the sea, the octopus dreams of me.
  2. In the beginning was the word, and it was spoken.
  3. Anything is bearable if you can make a story out of it.
  4. A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.
  5. If you believe in the power of words, you can bring about physical changes in the universe.
  6. Indians are marvelous storytellers. In some ways, that oral tradition is stronger than the written tradition.
  7. They have assumed the names and gestures of their enemies, but have held on to their own, secret souls; and in this there is a resistance and an overcoming, a long outwaiting.
  8. He used both hands when he made the bear. Imagine a bear proceeding from the hands of God.
  9. I have a pretty good knowledge of the Indian world by virtue of living on several different reservations and being exposed to several different cultures and languages.
  10. Words were medicine; they were magic and invisible. They came from nothing into sound and meaning. They were beyond price; they could neither be bought nor sold.
quote by N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday inspirational quote

N. Scott Momaday Short Quotes

  • The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see.
  • The landscape of the American West has to be seen to believed and has to be believed to be seen.
  • The highest human purpose is always to reinvent and celebrate the sacred.
  • I sometimes think the contemporary white American is more culturally deprived than the Indian.
  • Her name is Ago, and she belonged to the last culture to evolve in North America.
  • Loneliness is an aspect of the land.
  • Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun.

N. Scott Momaday Famous Quotes And Sayings

We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined. — N. Scott Momaday

There was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened. At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began. The Word did not come into being, but it was. It did not break upon the silence, but it was older than the silence and the silence was made of it. — N. Scott Momaday

It is here that I can concentrate my mind upon the Remembered Earth. It is here that I am most conscious of being, here that wonder comes upon my blood, here I want to live forever; and it is no matter that I must die. — N. Scott Momaday

For the storyteller, for the arrowmaker, language does indeed represent the only chance for survival. — N. Scott Momaday

My father was a painter and he taught art. He once said to me, 'I never knew an Indian child who could not draw.' — N. Scott Momaday

To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. — N. Scott Momaday

I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain. None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable. If we are to realize and maintain our humanity, we must come to a moral comprehension of earth and air as it is perceived in the long turn of seasons and of years. — N. Scott Momaday

Coyotes have the gift of seldom being seen; they keep to the edge of vision and beyond, loping in and out of cover on the plains and highlands. And at night, when the whole world belongs to them, they parley at the river with the dogs, their higher, sharper voices full of authority and rebuke. They are an old council of clowns, and they are listened to. — N. Scott Momaday

My line of vision was such that the creature filled the moon like a fossil. It had gone there, I thought, to live and die, for there, of all places, was its small definition made whole and eternal — N. Scott Momaday

The first word gives origin to the second, the first and second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and so on. You cannot begin with the second word. — N. Scott Momaday

The character of the landscape changes from hour to hour, day to day, season to season. Nothing of the earth can be taken for granted; you feel that Creation is going on in your sight. You see things in the high air that you do not see farther down in the lowlands. In the high country all objects bear upon you, and you touch hard upon the earth. From my home I can see the huge, billowing clouds; they draw close upon me and merge with my life. — N. Scott Momaday

Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience; to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder upon it, and dwell upon it. — N. Scott Momaday

It's a landscape that has to be seen to be believed. And, as I say on occasion, it may have to be believed in order to be seen. — N. Scott Momaday

Writing engenders in us certain attitudes toward language. It encourages us to take words for granted. Writing has enabled us to store vast quantities of words indefinitely. This is advantageous on the one hand but dangerous on the other. The result is that we have developed a kind of false security where language is concerned, and our sensitivity to language has deteriorated. And we have become in proportion insensitive to silence. — N. Scott Momaday

Although my grandmother lived out her long life in the shadow of Rainy Mountian, the immense landscape of the continental interior lay like memory in her blood — N. Scott Momaday

Life Lessons by N. Scott Momaday

  1. N. Scott Momaday's work emphasizes the importance of preserving and honoring Native American culture and traditions.
  2. His writing also emphasizes the power of storytelling and its ability to bridge cultural gaps.
  3. Momaday's work also encourages readers to appreciate the beauty of nature and the interconnectedness of all living things.
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