Quotes About Narrative

The Fay have always preferred a good story over a well-thought plan.

We all reinvent our pasts, but writers are in a class of their own

In our family histories, the frontier between fact and fiction is vague, especially in the record of events that took place before we were born, or when we were too young to record them accurately; there are few maps to these remote regions, and only the occasional sign to guide the explorer.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who want to know the facts, and those who want to make up a nice story to feel better. I wish I was the kind who made up stories.

Who would tell the story of the elephant when she was gone? A family was only as strong as their stories.

One story is good, till another is told.

History nowadays is not a matter of conviction. It's a performance. It's entertainment. And if it isn't, make it so.

She listened to a life's story that was, she discovered, richer than it was sad.

I've never known a storyteller who was unhappy when telling stories.

We must learn to think of our lives as stories that move along recognizable paths, paths followed by our predecessors and indeed indeed

If I have to have a past, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.

Everybody has their story to tell.

I'm not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! ~ JOKER

Even though it's somebody else's tragedy rather than my own. I was there and I laughed along with all the rest and I guess that makes it part of my story also.

In our narratives we may signify without constraint.

El individuo medio es capaz de afrontar una narrativa compleja, pero a menudo no es lo que se le ofrece. En la cultura popular, primero, se decide que el público está compuesto sobre todo de simplones que no apreciarían nada inteligente. Entonces, se producen obras de ese estilo, asumiendo que es lo que la masa quiere. Este proceso, prolongado durante décadas, genera una audiencia que difícilmente podrá reconocer un material inteligente, si es que lo ve.

the great theme of the private journal in the 20th century is sickness.

It is hard to think about your past without tidying it up into a kind of story: one in which you are cast as the hero or victim. Invariably we ignore the regular dice-rolls of chance or random luck; successful high-flyers are typically prone to ignoring the interplay of blind fortune when they credit their career trajectories to their canny business sense or brute self-belief. We tell the story we want to tell, and we live out those stories every day.

WE GENERALLY FEEL defined by our past. Our past, however, is a story that we tell ourselves in the present.

We are, each of us, a product of the stories we tell ourselves.

there is a deeper happiness to be had in knowing that your life is part of a story of flourishing than there is in merely pursuing entertainment.

Apothegms are in history, the same as pearls in the sand, or gold in the mine.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

History seeks to be everyone's truth, but is limited by available facts. More