House Made of Dawn

by N. Scott Momaday

He remembered the prayer, and he knew what it meant—not the words, which he had never really heard, but the low sound itself, rising and falling far away in his mind, unmistakable and unbroken.

Such vastness makes for illusion, a kind of illusion that comprehends reality, and where it exists there is always wonder and exhilaration.

It was late at night that he liked best to use his mind, to read and write with cigarettes and black coffee. Then, alone with himself, he could take stock of all his resources and prospects, and he could find his place among them.

And the simple act of listening is crucial to the concept of language, more crucial even than reading and writing,