I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.
Leslie Marmon SilkoRead
The only way to get change is not through the courts or - heaven forbid - the politicians, but through a change of human consciousness and through a change of heart. Only through the arts - music, poetry, dance, painting, writing - "can we really reach each other.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True change comes from within individuals rather than through institutions or politics.
This quote emphasizes that genuine transformation in society is rooted in a fundamental shift in human consciousness and emotions. It suggests that the arts play a crucial role in fostering empathy and connection among people, enabling them to truly understand and reach one another beyond the limitations of traditional systems like law and politics.
Themes
ChangeConsciousnessArtHuman ConnectionHeart
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of arts in social movements.
More from Leslie Marmon Silko
All quotes →To be able to make up stories has been a great gift to me from my ancestors and from the storytellers who were so numerous at Laguna Pueblo when I was growing up. I learned to read as soon as I could because I wanted stories without having to depend on adults to tell or read stories to me.
Leslie Marmon SilkoRead
Then they grow away from the earth then they grow away from the sun then they grow away from the plants and the animals. They see no life. When they look they see only objects. The world is a dead thing for them the trees and the rivers are not alive. the mountains and stones are not alive. The deer and bear are objects. They see no life. They fear. They fear the world. They destroy what they fear. They fear themselves.
Leslie Marmon SilkoRead
Distances and days existed in themselves then; they all had a story. They were not barriers. If a person wanted to get to the moon, there is a way; it all depended on whether you knew the directions, on whether you knew the story of how others before you had gone. He had believed in the stories for a long time, until the teachers at Indian school taught him not to believe in that kind of "nonsense". But they had been wrong.
Leslie Marmon SilkoRead
But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone. As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together.
Leslie Marmon SilkoRead
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