Quotes About Narrative

People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.

And then she began to cry, and when I asked her why she was doing that, she said it was because I was to have a happy ending, and it was just like a book; and I wondered what books she'd been reading.

I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story, because after all I want you to hear it….By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you….Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.

Writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated deep down, by a fear or and fascination with mortality - by a desire to make the risky trip to the underworld and to bring something or someone back from the dead.

Life Stories: Why hunger for these? One, it fits a hunger. Maybe it is more like bossiness. Maybe we just want to be in charge of the life, no matter who lived it...

But I have already told the beginning, so right now it's the middle. And Zeb is in the middle of the story about Zeb. He is in the middle of his own story. I am not in this part of the story; it hasn't come to the part with me. But I'm waiting, far off in the future. I'm waiting for the story of Zeb to join up with mine. The story of Toby. The story I am in right now, with you.

When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion;

It's somewhat daunting to reflect that Hell is -- possibly -- the place where you are stuck in your own personal narrative for ever, and Heaven is -- possibly -- the place where you can ditch it, and take up wisdom instead.

By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.

But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one.

And what did I amount to, once the official version gained ground? An edifying legend. A stick used to beat other women with.

Yes, good, kind Crake. Please stop singing or I can't go on with the story.

None of them were the men we knew. The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others.

There was always that shadowy twin, thin when i was fat, fat when i was thin, myself in silvery narrative...

Debt . . . . that peculiar nexus where money, narrative or story, and religious belief intersect, often with explosive force.

But if its a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone.

By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.

Storytelling is not a luxury to humanity; it's almost as necessary as bread. We cannot imagine ourselves without it, because the self is a story.

Noi eravamo la gente di cui non si parlava nei giornali. Vivevamo nei vuoti spazi bianchi ai margini dei fogli e questo ci dava più libertà. Vivevamo tra gli interstizi di storie altrui.

WITHOUT MEMORY, there is no debt. Put another way: without story, there is no debt.

Calling a piece of short fiction a "tale" removes it at least slightly from the realm of mundane works and days, as it evokes the world of the folk tale, the wonder tale, and the long-ago teller of tales.

He will exist for her at least, he will be created by her, he will have a place in her mythology after all.

Yes, good, kind Crake. I will stop telling this story if you sing. Because it makes me forget what I am telling.

For so much time, our history was written in bones only.