Quotes About Stories

Susan was already rehearsing excuses in case she was caught: I just got my period and I was looking for a tissue to stuff in my underpants. Men didn't question menstruation stories. Ever. You could probably get into the White House if you said you needed a tampon ASAP.

When do my stories get to change?

There are stories hidden in the language we use, whether we're conscious of them or not. They tell the truth of our hearts and minds.

What this requires of us is that we don't get tangled up in the living, even when we in fact feel woefully tangled up. It demands that we focus not only on what's happening in our stories, but also what our stories are about.

The only thing I ever hope to do as a writer is to make people feel less alone, to make them feel more human, to make them feel what I have felt so many times as a reader: stories have the power to save us by illuminating the most profoundly beautiful and terrible things about our existence.

The window is open and a warm, delicious little breeze comes wandering in. It smells of magnolias and dogwood and it whispers in our ears enticing little stories of gurgling brooks and cool woods. Yes, we have got spring fever and got it bad.

The best of the old stories spoke to the listener because they spoke not just to the ears but to the heart as well.

Bedtime stories are a doorway to dreams.

Maybe our stories aren't simply about suffering. And maybe life isn't separated neatly in to chapters. Maybe joy and heartache bleed together, spilling out in to the binding of each page. Because even when heartache doesn't have a clear beginning and end, we can be certain that neither does love, goodness, and joy. And maybe that is life and the truth of our stories; they aren't one thing or another. They are a glorious mess of it all.

To witness is to make the truth known, but we must remember that most victims have no voice of their own, and that in bearing witness to their stories we must not appropriate them

Heaven does not tell stories of oppressed peoples.

an only son named Jack. Jack was a boy of a bold temper; he took pleasure in hearing or reading stories

He proved a master at broadcasting his own legend, exaggerating his exploits as a fighter; among North Korean peasants, stories circulated about how Kim could render himself invisible during battles

Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to hear about the world of human beings up above; she made her old grandmother tell her all that she knew about ships and towns, people and animals. But above all it seemed strangely beautiful to her that up on the earth the flowers were scented, for they were not so at the bottom of the sea.

What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia, family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.

I don't necessarily love the sports per se, I love the stories behind them. Also in a kind of perverse way I like to study what it does to us, why we care so much. It's caring about something that's utterly meaningless.

Only the technology has changed. The public's appetite for sensational true-crime stories has remained exactly the same.

Storytelling explores the problem with people. Stories without conflict are bad stories that no one repeats. Conflict describes the reality of human life and interaction with others. The resolution of the conflict in which everyone lives happily ever after reflects the human yearning for hope.

My father belongs to the generation that fought the war in the 1940s. When I was a kid my father told me stories - not so many, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to know what happened then, to my father's generation. It's a kind of inheritance, the memory of it.

Books can make a difference in dispelling prejudice and building community: not with role models and recipes, not with noble messages about the human family, but with enthralling stories that make us imagine the lives of others. A good story lets you know people as individuals in all their particularity and conflict; and once you see someone as a person—flawed, complex, striving—you've reached beyond stereotype.

postmoderns have lost faith in the idea of objective verification. Instead, they focus on the persuasive power of the stories we tell

What did your mother do?" he said. "Sir?" "When it was time for bed," said the King. "Tell me." The girls exchanged nervous glances. He was talking about Mother. "She used to help the girls with their prayers," said Azalea, hesitant. "And-sometimes she would read stories." The King set the sword on the table, next to the vase. "Very well," he said as the girls whispered to one another. "I will read you a story." The whispering stopped.

Your heart is like a divine scroll that unfolds into life like the stories of angels in flight.

Friendship is where the best stories begin.