N. Scott Momaday quotes

Indians are marvelous storytellers. In some ways, that oral tradition is stronger than the written tradition. (N. Scott Momaday)

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

A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.

N. Scott Momaday

As far as I am concerned, poetry is a statement concerning the human condition, composed in verse.

N. Scott Momaday

I wonder if, in the dark night of the sea, the octopus dreams of me.

N. Scott Momaday

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.

N. Scott Momaday

Writing is not a matter of choice. Writers have to write. It is somehow in their temperament, in the blood, in tradition.

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.

N. Scott Momaday

I have deep roots in this Oklahoma soil. It makes me proud.

N. Scott Momaday

I am a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society; I visit sacred places such as Devil's Tower and the Medicine Wheel. These places are important to me, because they've been made sacred by sacrifice, by the investment of blood and experience and story.

N. Scott Momaday

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. (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

N. Scott Momaday

N. Scott Momaday - Image

Photo: ISU Library. SCUA. AV Collection., CC BY 3.0

Occupation: American Author
Born: February 27, 1934
Died: January 24, 2024
Quotes count: 12

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