# Quote — Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

> Ceremony
>
> I will tell you something about stories,
>
> [he said]
>
> 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.
>
> You don’t have anything
>
> if you don’t have the stories.
>
> Their evil is mighty
>
> but it can’t stand up to our stories.
>
> So they try to destroy the stories
>
> let the stories be confused or forgotten.
>
> They would like that
>
> They would be happy
>
> Because we would be defenseless then.
>
> He rubbed his belly.
>
> I keep it in here
>
> [he said]
>
> Here, put your hand on it
>
> See, It is moving.
>
> There is life here
>
> for the people.
>
> And in the belly of this story
>
> the rituals and the ceremony
>
> are still growing.

- Author: [Leslie Marmon Silko](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko.md)
- Book: [Ceremony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony.md)
- Page: 2
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leslie_Marmon_Silko#Ceremony_(1977)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony/ceremony-i-will

## More from this book

> [He] said that only humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind. (p24)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony/he-said-that.md)

> The breaking and crushing were gone, and the love pushed inside his chest, and when he cried now, it was because she loved him so much. (p211)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony/the-breaking-and.md)

> He crawled deeper into the black gauzy web where he could rest in the silence, where his coming and going through this world was no more than a star falling across the night sky. He left behind the pain and buzzing in his head; they were shut out by the wide dark distance. (p154)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony/he-crawled-deeper.md)