Quotes About Stories

You could keep people alive forever through stories.

Stories were ruthless creatures and sometimes fattened themselves on bloody happenings.

Well, if you are to help me with my work, you had better get used to stories without endings. True stories seldom have endings.

The merchant was leaning forward now, spyglass jammed to his eye. Since all of this was a story to tell his friends later, a tragedy was as good as triumph. Better, perhaps. Stories were ruthless creatures, and sometimes fattened themselves on bloody happenings.

Jesus made everything so simple and we have made it so complicated. He spoke to the people in short sentences and everyday words, illustrating His messages with never-to-be forgotten stories.

That's the trouble with you readers. You know all the plots.

There is a saying in sales: Facts tell, but stories sell. This is easy to remember because it rhymes, but it's not entirely true. Stories don't necessarily sell. What they do is connect.

Stories hang from the trees, hive under the coffee table, gather like glass on the corners of the road. To pick them up one needs simply to focus one's eye and keep a steady hand. Writing focuses the eye; writing develops the steadiness of one's hand.

I always know exactly where my stories take place, which gives me something certain so I can use my imagination for the other stuff. I worry though, who wants to keep reading stories about Kalamazoo?

I've got a head full of stories you still need to hear, starting with my ribs, ending with my whole life.

Telling stories about your memory of what happened may be entertaining for a while, but if that is all you can do it gets boring pretty fast.

The narrative fallacy, Bezos explained, was a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan to describe how humans are biologically inclined to turn complex realities into soothing but oversimplified stories.

I had already learned—without knowing I'd learned it—that every single thing in the world was full of mystery and awesome power. And it was only by right ways of doing things—ritual ways—that kept any of us safe. Making stories about them was not so that we could understand them but so that we could live with them.

That's how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There's only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Most people are not looking for provable truths. As you said, truth is often accompanied by intense pain, and almost no one is looking for painful truths. What people need is beautiful, comforting stories that make them feel as if their lives have some meaning. Which is where religion comes from.

The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring - and all of the acts carried out - on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories.

My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart...

All my books are weird love stories. I love weird love stories.

I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

Amos watched her, struck again by how exquisite the stories were the people around him carried, and mostly silently, the lives they'd lived and endured, the sweetness and loss.

There are many different stories to tell. It's never the same. Every day weather blows in and out, alters the surface. Sometimes it is stripped down to a single essential truth, the thing that is always believed, no matter what. The seeds from which the garden has grown.

One of the qualities essential to writing exciting stories, whether for page or screen, is an ability to abandon one's morality. We simply cannot be good writers and good people. One must be able to access one's darkest self, one's venality and pettiness and murderousness.

Working on 'Drive', a lot of fun. This is Tim Minear whom I've worked with before on 'Firefly' of course. He called me up and said, 'I've got a part for you that you will love,' and I love Tim's writing. I love his stories. I love his characters, his dialogue. He has a knack for reveals and he has a knack for moments.

I'm a woman, and I'm interested in writing stories from a female perspective.