N. Scott Momaday Quotes

My Grandmother was a Storyteller;
She knew her way around Words.
She never learned to read and write, but somehow
She knew the good of reading and writing;
She had learned how to Listen and Delight.
She had learned that in Words and in Language,
and there only,
She could have whole and consummate Being.
You see for Her, 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, and
She never threw Words away.
She told me Stories and
She taught me how to Listen.
I was a Child, and I Listened.

...and he began to run after them. He was running... and there was no reason to run but running itself and the land and the dawn appearing. The sun rose... and shone in shafts upon the road across the snow-covered valley and hills. ...His legs buckled and he fell in the snow. ...And he got up and ran on. He was alone and running on... he was past caring about the pain... and he could see at last without having to think. He could see the canyons and the mountains and the sky. He could see the rain and the river and the fields beyond... and under his breath he began to sing... House made of pollen, house made of dawn...

"My grandfather is dead," Abel said. "You must bury him."... "My grandfather is dead," Abel repeated. His voice was low and even. There was no emotion, nothing.

The mortar fire had stopped. ...The silence had awakened him—and the low, even mutter of the machine that was coming. ...His vision cleared and he saw the countless leaves dip and sail across the splinters of light. The machine... was coming. ...The sound of the machine brimmed at the ridge ...whole and deafening. His mouth fell open upon the cold, wet leaves, and he began to shake violently. ...Then, through the falling leaves, he saw the machine. It rose up behind the hill, black and massive, looming there in front of the sun, He saw it swell, deepen, and take shape on the skyline, as if it were some upheaval of earth. ...For a moment it seemed apart from the land ...Then it came crashing down to the grade, slow as a waterfall, thunderous, surpassing impact, nestling almost into the splash and boil of debris. He was shaking violently, and the machine bore down upon him, came close, and passed him by. A wind arose and ran along the slope, scattering the leaves.

And Mariano fell and was exhausted. Fransisco held his stride all the way... and even then he could have gone on running, for no reason, for only the sake of running on.

Every six or seven years there is a great harvest of piñones far to the east of town. That harvest, like the deer in the mountains, is the gift of God.

Now and then in winter, great angles of geese fly through the valley, and then the sky and the geese are the same color and the air is hard and damp and smoke rises from the houses of the town.

...and Abel was running. Against the winter sky and the long, light valley of the landscape at dawn, he seemed almost to be standing still, very little and alone.

There was a house made of dawn. It was made of pollen and of rain, and the land was very old and everlasting.

Translate yourself to spirit; Be present on your journey. Keep to the trees and waters. Be the singing of the soil.

Translate yourself to spirit;
Be present on your journey.

Keep to the trees and waters.

Be the singing of the soil.

Division

There is a depth of darkness
In the wild country, days of evening
And the silence of the moon.
I have crept upon the bare ground
Where animals have left their tracks,
And faint cries carry on the summits,
Or sink to silence in the muffled leaves.
Here is the world of wolves and bears
And of old, instinctive being,
So noble and indifferent as to be remote
To human knowing. The scales upon which
We seek a balance measure only a divide.

This belongs to an eagle, he says. And the eagle belongs to the earth and sky. The feather, by itself, may seem a small thing, but the creature of which it is a part is very powerful. That power resides in this feather. It is a power tha tbinds all thing stogether. When I fold this feather, its power flows into me.

We humans must revere the earth, for it is our well-being. Always the earth grants us what we need. If we treat the earth with kindness, it will treat us kindly. If we give our belief to the earth, it will believe in us. There is no better blessing than to be believed in.

The crippled old man in leggings and white ceremonial trousers shuffled out into the late afternoon. He dried his eyes on his sleeve and whimpered one last time in his throat. He was grown too old, he thought. He could not understand what had happened. But even his sorrow was feeble now; it had withered, like his leg, over the years, and only once in a while, when something unusual happened to remind him of it, did it take on the edge and point of pain.