Quotes About Narrative

This was the story he told himself, and the stories we tell ourselves long enough become our truths.

Myth took the place of objectively conceived history. Myth, Michel Tournier has said, is "history everyone already knows."2 As such, history becomes nothing but a tool of the present, with no integrity whatsoever of its own.

But surely it is the gist that matters; I am, after all, telling you a history, and in history, as I suspect you—an American—will agree, it is the thrust of one's narrative that counts, not the accuracy of one's details.

We need language. We need language to tell stories. We need stories to create a self. We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains. The self we create is a fiction.

People often ask me if I am the book's Pakistani protagonist. I wonder why they never ask if I am his American listener. After all, a novel can often be a divided man's conversation with himself.

stories of evil can be projected on them with as little difficulty as stories of good.

I am, after all, telling you a history, and in history, as I suspect you—an American—will agree, it is the thrust of one's narrative that counts, not the accuracy of one's details.

Because the story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don't they teach you anything in school?

But certain others, they move in and make themselves at home and start flapping their arms in the story you make of your life. They have a wingspan.

We all need a story of where we came from and how we got here. Otherwise, how could we ever put down our tender roots and stay.

I did not give you my permission, Madame, to treat me in this way. I am here to feed you, not to serve as your fodder. I demand more money for such services, Madame. You pay me only for my time. My story, Madame, is mine. I alone am qualified to tell it, to embelish, or to withhold.

A story, after all, is best when shared, a gift in the truest sense of the word.

A good historian must combine the talents of the storyteller and the scientist. He must know what is likely to have happened as well as what some witnesses or writers said actually did happen.

the unity of a story is always in its plot.

You have become acquainted with the characters. You have joined them in the imaginary world wherein they dwell, consented to the laws of their society, breathed its air, tasted its food, traveled its highways. Now you must follow them through their adventures.

To read a story well you must have your finger on the pulse of the narrative, be sensitive to its very beat.

Milly's narrative skill was considerable... she brought a scene to life by a chance descriptive detail in the right place and by that graphic and right placing of words which most of the Irish excel at. She had no Irish blarney, she never exaggerated. I could listen to Milly for hours.

very good story and I enjoyed it very much

The facts are always less than what really happened.

this kind of story intrinsically satisfying.

Sabes que ese manzano fue plantado con la tierra robada a los Rodilla-Herida por el gobernador del estado? ¿Acaso tú conoces que su savia se nutre con los huesos y pelos prisioneros de San Quintín? Did you know that apple tree was planted on land stolen from Wounded Knee by the governor of the state? Perhaps you know how its sap is nourished with the prisoner bones and hair of San Quentin? (de Un Manzano de Oakland, para Angela Davis)

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction. —Oscar Wilde

Always remember: In the end, the surviver gets to tell the story.

Because that's what the story's really about: getting out of paying your debts. That's not how they tell it, but I knew. My father was a moneylender, you see.