Quotes About Narrative

If it's fiction, then it better be true.

We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we've been lied to.

I don't recall the moment when I officially became a storyteller—a talented liar—but here I must quote Simon Ortiz, the Acoma Pueblo writer, who said, "Listen. If it's fiction, then it better be true.

But epics are rarely honest, and honesty should never be epic.

He was a white man and, therefore, he was allowed to be romantic.

Jesus, Junior said, all these years since Columbus landed and now he's finally decided to fuck me in the ass.

We are all given one thing by which our lives are measured, one determination. Mine are the stories which can change or not change the world. It doesn't matter which as long as I continue to tell the stories.

I'd wanted to say something epic and honest. But epics are rarely honest, and honesty should never be epic.

surrounded by five hundred years of convenient lies.

There are always three sides to every memory…yours, theirs, and the truth, which lies somewhere in between the two

There are three sides to every story: yours, theirs, and the truth somewhere in the middle.

There are always three sides to every memory….yours, theirs, and the truth, which lies somewhere in between the two" - Acheron

I don't know of a greater privilege than being allowed to tell a story, or to listen to a story. They're the only thing we have that can trump life itself.

Sometime during your life—in fact, very soon—you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book's first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains.

But life is not a legend or a story. Reality is far more precious than a story.

We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story.

Every so often my life will feel like a story. It doesn't have to be a big thing; in fact, most often, it's just the opposite.

You can't make a good show based on pure verisimilitude, pure anti-drama. But you have to acknowledge a lot of ordinary life. Most TV doesn't do that.

You have the capacity to change the plotline of your life, even if you've been acting from the same script since before you can remember.

While I think storytelling is a meaningful way to spend your life... it does feel a little bit secondary or off-point.

Life is not to be told, call it as loud as you like, it will not tell itself.

I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are.

Character, to me, is the life's blood of fiction

I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.