Quotes about story-telling

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov

The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary story-tellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy any one daring to pull them up for a trifle! But that's how they are caught.

Patti Davis -

Stories live in your blood and bones, follow the seasons and light candles on the darkest night-every storyteller knows she or he is also a teacher..

Anita Amirrezvani - The Blood of Flowers

My mother had comforted me with tales ever since I was small. Sometimes they helped me peel a problem like an onion, or gave me ideas about what to do; other times, they calmed me so much that I would fall into a soothing sleep. My father used to say that her tales were better than the best medicine. Sighing, I burrowed into my mother's body like a child, knowing that the sound of her voice would be a balm on my heart.

Alister E. McGrath - If I Had Lunch with C.S. Lewis: Exploring the Ideas of C.S. Lewis on the Meaning of Life

Christianity tells a big story. It allows us to see our own story in a new way.

Mani S. Sivasubramanian - Improve Your Concentration & Get Things Done - Easily!

We all have our own stories. The story you tell about yourself, even if you only tell it to yourself, drives your actions and has a significant impact on your focus.

Sherman Alexie - Reservation Blues

Thomas Builds-the-Fire's stories climbed into your clothes like sad, gave you itches that could not be scratched. If you repeated eve a sentence from one of those stories, your throat was never the same again. Those stories hung in your clothes and hair like smoke, and no amount of laundry soap or shampoo washed them out. Victor and Junior often tried to beat those stories out of Thomas, tied him down and taped his mouth shut. They pretended to be friendly and tried to sweet talk Thomas into tem

Gyula Illyés - Once Upon a Time: Forty Hungarian Folk-Tales

These tales, without exception, express the truth that justice triumphs in the end. They all contain the idea that it is worth while to fight for the truth, in any situation.In this fight man is assisted by more powerful beings than ordinary mortals. And the triumph of justice is the only sense and consolation in this world. Indeed, the world itself started out with this hope. The human race received it long, long ago as a cradle-song.

Sharad Vivek Sagar -

Some people believe in telling stories. Some believe in doing things about which stories will be told in times to come.

Jennifer Frick-Ruppert - Spirit Quest

Any story worth telling has been embellished a little bit, Skyco, but the best stories are born from an honest seed that simply grows a little in the retelling of it.

Vera Nazarian -

Every story needs to be worth telling.

Rebecca Skloot - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

For me, it's writing a book and telling people about this story.

Billy Marshall Stoneking -

Too many film schools, as well as any number of screenwriting gurus and an obscene number of how-to-write tomes, have made a business of catering to fledgling screenwriters and filmmakers by exploiting their belief that the only thing standing between them and an Oscar is the right kind of knowledge. If only one knew enough, one could easily become rich and famous. Unfortunately, almost all are susceptible to that eternal malady – “that last great infirmity of the soul” – which is FAME. And whil

Rick Riordan - The Mark of Athena

While Leo fussed over his helm controls, Hazel and Frank relayed the story of the fish-centaurs and their training camp.'Incredible,' Jason said. 'These are really good brownies.''That's your only comment?' Piper demanded.He looked surprised. 'What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies--''I know,' Frank said, his mouth full. 'Try them with Ester's peach preserves.''That,' Hazel said, 'is incredibly disgusting.''Pass me th

Jules Cashford -

A myth, in its original Greek meaning- muthos- is simply that: a story, one which seeks to render life transparent to an intelligible source.

Shahenshah Hafeez Khan -

Buying & selling is not a process, but a story, the base of this story is “need”. Need arising out of necessity or a feeling to own / experience that product / service. The customer narrates the base (need) of the story, but how well the story develops is left to the storytelling (sales pitch) skills of salesperson, sometimes the storytelling leaves such an impression that the customer has no choice but to be a part of that story.

Holly Lisle -

The story I'm writing finds its own voice while I'm writing it.

Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex

According to an ancient Chinese legend, one day in the year 240 B.C., Princess Si Ling-chi was sitting under a mulberry tree when a silkworm cocoon fell into her teacup. When she tried to remove it, she noticed that the cocoon had begun to unravel in the hot liquid. She handed the loose end to her maidservant and told her to walk. The servant went out of the princess's chamber, and into the palace courtyard, and through the palace gates, and out of the Forbidden City, and into the countryside a

Gyula Illyés - Once Upon a Time: Forty Hungarian Folk-Tales

The life of the hero of the tale is, at the outset, overshadowed by bitter and hopeless struggles; one doubts that the little swineherd will ever be able to vanquish the awful Dragon with the twelve heads. And yet, ...truth and courage prevail and the youngest and most neglected son of the family, of the nation, of mankind, chops off all twelve heads of the Dragon, to the delight of our anxious hearts. This exultant victory, towards which the hero of the tale always strives, is the hope and trus

Mae West -

You are never too old to become younger!

Leah C. Fowler -

Narrative understanding is a large part of the ability to connect with, understand, and have compassion for all of us engaged in learning more about being human.

Natasha Tsakos -

If the past is no longer presentis it fiction?

Natasha Tsakos -

Because the new the stories we tell, the art we make, the rockets we build, will influence the future that shapes our present.

Natasha Tsakos -

It’s no longer history in the making. It’s our story we are making.

Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently

Natasha Tsakos -

Theatre is pure teleportation by means of suspension. It’s a voyage into the archives of the human imagination. A passport to all what ifs.

Umberto Eco - Postscript to the Name of the Rose

Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.

April Genevieve Tucholke - Wink Poppy Midnight

Revenge. Justice. Love. They are the three stories that all other stories are made up of. It's the trifecta.

Lily Graham - The Cornish Escape

… real life hardly ever unfolds the way we’d like it to, not like in a story.

Vera Nazarian - Dreams of the Compass Rose

I tell the story to you now, but in each telling the story itself changes a little, changes direction, and that in turn changes you and me. So be very careful not only in how you repeat it but in how you remember it, goslings. More often than you realize it, the world is shaped by two things -- stories told and the memories they leave behind.

Alice Munro - Friend of My Youth

Her silent singing wrapped around the story she was telling herself, which she extended further every night on the deck. (Averill often told herself stories-- the activity seemed to her as unavoidable as dreaming.) Her singing was a barrier set between the world in her head and the world outside, between her body and the onslaught of the stars.

Gyula Illyés - Once Upon a Time: Forty Hungarian Folk-Tales

There is a folk-tale about a shoemaker and his wife who were so poor that they had to send their many children out into the world to make a living. The lads went through many a perilous adventure but came home in the end, unscathed, to help their mother. They had always remembered their mother's advice and wise words; they often quoted them when they were in trouble, and in fact they recognized one another by them in foreign lands.The countless peoples of the world may be looked upon as so many

Related Quote Subjects