Quotes About Stories

I pride myself on being available to as many people's stories as I possibly can.

I think any journalist who spends time in a place realizes that there are lots of stories around beyond their primary story. You meet so many interesting people and have all kinds of experiences.

As artists, our primary function is not to be educators - but we are at a time in history, where for us, our history needs to give context for stories that we hope to tell down the road.

I just always lived in stories in my head. I believed I was a Martian princess until I was 10. I believed I was never going to die, and I'd been adopted and put on Earth because there was a war... and still sometimes, as I get older, I hope for my immortal life on Mars.

My interest in Princess Margaret comes through Vanessa Kirby's brilliant portrayal of her in 'The Crown.' Rather than do the classic story from beginning to end, this book gives you many different glimpses. You get a much more intimate sense of the person through little incidents, stories, and gossip.

I think most people aren't really privy to how stories are developed and what stories are - make it to the front page or to the mainstream media, whether it's in print or in broadcast. And I think they'd be shocked and disappointed to see some of the bias that exists in some of the stories that don't get told - or the manner in which they are told.

Some of the best news stories start in gossip. Monica Lewinsky certainly was gossip in the beginning. I had heard it months before I printed it.

I'm interested in illustration in all its forms. Not only in books for children but in posters, prints and performance as a way of drawing people into books and stories.

From kindergarten, I knew that politics is something that you talk about only at home, because if you weren't quiet, your parents might be taken to prison. All Estonian families have these kind of stories.

I didn't spend a lot of time with prison guards, but my father was an assistant district attorney for a long time so I was always hearing stories about prisoners and prison guards.

One of the great joys of my job is having the privilege of meeting people from all across the country and hearing their stories.

I'm grateful to women who have the privilege and ability to tell their stories and applaud them for doing that. And also recognize that there are many, many women in this country who will never have that opportunity.

The shows I've been working on, especially 'Parenthood' and 'Friday Night Lights,' I think are completely character-driven stories. I think, for most writers, that's a privilege to be telling those kinds of stories. It's erroneous to me.

This is a privilege, what we get to do. To be able to tell stories. It's a luxury. So I have a business-like approach to it, the same way I had with football.

I think, for an actor, the whole world is a place of work because if you focus on characters and on stories, they are everywhere, so yeah, I feel very privileged to have had this great opportunities in the international cinema and especially in the American cinema.

I've been religiously reading the O. Henry Prize anthologies every year since college, when I first began trying to write stories. Many of the authors whose work I cherish the most were people I first learned about through The O. Henry Prize Stories - and then I'd go search for their books.

Each of my novels has come from a different place, and the processes are not always entirely conscious. I have lived off and on in America for a number of years and so have accumulated observations, found things interesting, been moved to tell stories about them.

I want to do better. I want to produce better stories. I want to do better plays.

I try to support stories that enable us to see the difficulties in our society and the challenges we face, which is why I've also produced documentaries like 'Brick City' and 'Serving Life.'

I always do stories that I believe in, characters that I find interesting, and directors who I want to work with. All these factors have contributed while making choices and continue to as an actor and as a producer.

There are a lot of women - directors, producers, writers - involved in my career. They are all interested in telling good stories, and good stories involve men and women.

When I'm directing or producing, I like to do different kinds of stories. But you have to know what you really like, and when you do, you have to front your position.

I've gotten involved in producing now, so the kinds of things that are more my own choice are more possible in that field because I don't have to be castable. I can actually get involved in getting stories off the ground that no one would ask me to be in because I'm the wrong age, the wrong sex, the wrong nationality, or whatever.

Whatever I do - whether it's directing, producing - I just come at things from characters, from stories, from jokes and scene rhythms. I'll always have that at the epicenter, I think.