Leslie Marmon Silko

To be able to make up stories has been a great gift to me from my ancestors and from the storytellers who…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

“rip the tongue from the darkness shake the earth with your breathing and explode gray ice dreams of eternity”

— Leslie Marmon Silko

He made a story for all of them, a story to give them strength. The words of the story poured out of…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

The truth of course was otherwise, but Lecha had never felt she owed anyone the truth, unless it was truth about their…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

“He could get no rest as long as the memories were tangled with the present”

— Leslie Marmon Silko

The story was the important thing and little changes here and there were really part of the story. There were even stories…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

You don't have anything if you don't have the stories.

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Being alive was all right then: he had not breathed like that for a long time.

— Leslie Marmon Silko

I don't make outlines or plans because whenever I do, they turn out to be useless. It is as if I am…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

What is it about us human beings that we can’t let go of lost things?

— Leslie Marmon Silko

The only way to get change is not through the courts or — heaven forbid — the politicians, but through a change…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Night. Heavenly delicious sweet night of the desert that calls all of us to love her. The night is our comfort with…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Writing cant change the world overnight, but writing may have an enormous effect over time, over the long haul.

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Things which don't shift and grow are dead things.

— Leslie Marmon Silko

“I will tell you something about stories. They aren't just entertainment. They are all we have to fight off illness and death.…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

When someone dies, you don't get over it by forgetting; you get over it by remembering, and you are aware that no…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

relationships. That's all there really is. There's your relationship with the dust that just blew in your face, or with the person…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Writing can't change the world overnight, but writing may have an enormous effect over time, over the long haul.

— Leslie Marmon Silko

“Josiah said that only humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist.…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Distances and days existed in themselves then; they all had a story. They were not barriers. If a person wanted to get…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

For a long time he had been white smoke. He did not realize that until he left the hospital, because white smoke…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

“The white man hated to hear anything about spirits because spirits were already dead and could not be tortured and butchered or…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Because if you weren't born white, you were forced to see differences; or if you weren't born what they called normal, or…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

“He watched her face, and her eyes never shifted; they were with him while she moved out of her clothes and while…

— Leslie Marmon Silko

“You damn your own soul better than I ever could.”

— Leslie Marmon Silko