Sometimes, I think the best kind of poem is one in which there is an acute balance between what is humorous and that which is very serious. That balance is very hard to strike. But it can be done.
N. Scott MomadayRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the dual nature of writing, highlighting its benefits and potential drawbacks regarding our relationship with language.
N. Scott Momaday's quote emphasizes how writing shapes our perception of language, instilling a sense of complacency and over-reliance on words. While writing allows us to preserve language and communicate ideas, it can also lead to a diminished sensitivity to the nuances of language and silence, suggesting that our engagement with written words may result in a superficial understanding and appreciation of both verbal and non-verbal communication.
Themes
WritingLanguageSensitivityCommunicationSilence
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the importance of language, one might quote Momaday to highlight how writing affects our perception.
More from N. Scott Momaday
All quotes →For the storyteller, for the arrowmaker, language does indeed represent the only chance for survival.
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There is a great good in returning to a landscape that has had extraordinary meaning in one's life. It happens that we return to such places in our minds irresistibly. There are certain villages and towns, mountains and plains that, having seen them walked in them lived in them even for a day, we keep forever in the mind's eye. They become indispensable to our well-being; they define us, and we say, I am who I am because I have been there, or there.
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Writing is not a matter of choice. Writers have to write. It is somehow in their temperament, in the blood, in tradition.
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My father was a painter and he taught art. He once said to me, 'I never knew an Indian child who could not draw.'
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Indians are marvelous storytellers. In some ways, that oral tradition is stronger than the written tradition.
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