Quotes About Narrative

Until we learn to read the Bible as Story, we will not know how to get anything out of the Bible for daily living.

It is impossible for us to indwell this Story and not assume that narrative's perspective. Again, that perspective is God's perspective. It is not our perspective; it is God's perspective. It is God's perspective on us, not our perspective on others. Bible readers, especially pastors (and commenters on blogs), inevitably begin to think like God about ourselves and others.

I'm not beholden to the confirmation of your prejudices; to be perfectly frank, the prospect of confining the female characters in my story to placid, helpless secondary places in the narrative is so goddamn boring that I would rather not write at all.

There is a compelling story within each person and every organization.

It was the first time I had heard the truth of what happened that afternoon said in a voice that was not my own. Hearing what happened from Ann was like the difference between seeing your face in a mirror and seeing it in a photograph.

Sometimes stories have too much power. They change who people think you are.

Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?

I need time to develop the idea into a plot before I talk about it.

This is fictional time, where events play out and possibilities are exhausted, so that meaning can emerge.

We cannot bear for our most mysterious experiences to remain unexplained. I've therefore learned...that every story has worth, since a person takes the time to tell it. The key is to listen.

Whatever else a photograph may be about, it is always about time.

Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine - what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age.

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.

History, writing, infect after a time a man's sense of himself.

That's a very real feeling - that I don't have a story to tell. I'm not a pure storyteller. I have a tough time with story.

I think I'd been limiting myself in some ways just writing in first person all the time.

I am still trying to find out things. And I inevitably tell myself the story in different ways every time I think about it.

In a general sense, to convert any short story, novel, play, or opera into a movie, you have to re-rig it. Even though they're all narratives over time, they're very different forms.

If you are inclined to leave your character solitary for any considerable length of time, better question yourself. Fiction is association, not withdrawal.

Making a documentary, there are thousands of choices, all the time: the angles and the pace and the choice of characters, the choice of music.

I love the long-form format of television. I love being able to develop a character, over a long period of time.

I chose the title Dogwalker because that describes me pretty well. I spend a lot of time walking around with my dogs. I'd say the narrator is me in an alternate universe.

Oral storytelling goes back so long ago, and those stories that were told orally were always layered and changed with time.

I am a storyteller and a researcher, and I'm sorry the world has a hard time straddling the tension of those two things, but that's who I am.