Quotes About Narrative

The first section takes Sony Pictures as a focal point to explain how we got to where

I will begin to remember our walk in the third person, as if I'd seen it from the Manhattan Bridge, but, at the time of writing, as I lean against the chain-link fence intended to stop jumpers, I am looking back at the totaled city in the second person plural. I know it's hard to understand / I am with you, and I know how it is.  

To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them, can die without being misunderstood.

A therapist once said to me that I was a good storyteller, but he didn't mean it as a compliment.

Now, I take full blame for all that came next. For I continued the story...but departed the text.

When rumours fly, when false tales are being told, be the storyteller.

We might know how it ends, but like all good stories it bears repetition. So here it is again, the story of a battle.

and the story had to be told again, and Sharpe felt

Life is a story without an end.

The Chan tradition first acquired its legitimacy as a narrative about patriarchs, and, although some points of the narrative have been questioned by historians, the ideological function of the narrative itself has rarely been scrutinized.

Le storie ci accompagneranno finchè esisterà l'uomo. Lo si capisce, in parte, dall'effetto che hanno sui bambini. Grazie alle storie i bambini capiscono che il mistero non li ucciderà. Grazie alle storie scoprono di avere un futuro.

What will History say? - History, sir, will lie. As always.

Je n'ai jamais compris comment les guerres pouvaient faire tant de morts quand les chocs frontaux y sont finalement si rares. Je n'ai jamais plus admiré un récit de guerre qu'Hommage à la Catalogne de George Orwell parce qu'il raconte, justement, cette loi de l'attente et de la patience qui est la loi no 1 des combattants. (ch. 12 Les mots de la guerre)

History is not the past as it really was. It's the shape we give it.

Piensa lo que quieras. Soy yo quien cuenta la historia.

La historia no es el pasado tal como fue realmente, sino la forma que le damos

on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.

The only disadvantage in surviving a dangerous experience lies in the fact that your story of it tends to be anticlimactic. You can never carry on right through the point where whatever it is that threatens your life actually takes it -- and get anybody to believe you. The world is full of sceptics.

Life is a book and you are its author. You detemine its plot and pace and you--only you--turn its pages.

I usually start with a repulsive character and go on from there.

A brief short story may require only a few paragraphs after the climax. On the other hand, in his massive novel 'The World According to Garp,' John Irving's denouement consisted of 10 separate sections, each devoted to an individual character's fate and each almost a story in itself.

Character drives the story, and the story drives the book. I don't think about where the action should go, or how much there should be, until it's required by the characters. When I find myself adding conflict just because I'm afraid that the reader might get bored, I know I've taken a wrong turn somewhere.

If you are true at telling the story, it will get a good audience, and the required numbers.

The great thing about an anthology is that each year is its own 10-hour movie, and the only requirement is that it's the best 10-hour movie that I can make out of the story.