Quotes About Narrative

Tant que les lions n'auront pas leurs propres historiens, l'histoire de la chasse glorifiera toujours le chasseur

Equiano, one of the luckiest among them, acquired an education, freed himself, and wrote a book in 1789: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. He preceded his European slave name by his original Igbo name and affirmed his African identity, waving it like a banner in the wind.

Stories, after all, are merely memories given a certain tangibility with words, and it only takes a few words to subsume a memory completely.

The United States of Andrew Jackson or George Washington is not the United States of Frederick Douglass or Sitting Bull. But we present our history from the perspective of the winners, from those in power

Political leaders, who use the tools of mass propaganda to create a sense of faux intimacy with citizens, no longer need to be competent, sincere, or honest. They need only to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a personal narrative.

Until there is a common vocabulary and a shared historical memory, there is no peace in any society, only an absence of war... The search for a common narrative must, at times, be forced upon a society. Few societies seem able to do this willingly.

Until there is a common vocabulary and a shared historical memory there is no peace in any society, only an absence of war. The fighting may have stopped in Bosnia or Cyprus but this does not mean the war is over. The search for a common narrative must, at times, be forced upon a society. Few societies seem able to do this willingly.

It's a 'Doctor Who' budget. A BBC budget, although a very good one. But you know you can't do dinosaurs endlessly for 45 minutes, so there has to be a big 'other' story going on.

You can have great sequences with music, but if you don't have the acting you're bored after 15 minutes. Or not bored, but you're like, 'So what?'

I'm used to writing stories with a beginning a middle and an end in four minutes.

No history can be a faithful mirror. If it were, it would be as long and as dull as life itself. It must be a selection, and, being a selection, must inevitably be biased.

Well, for me, really, I think it was I wanted to try and clear up some of the misperceptions that were out there and fill in some of the historical gaps.

Not every character that you play is going to be somebody that you like or love, but every character that you play has a story that is worth telling. If you're not the person to tell it, that's one thing. But if you don't want to tell it because you are afraid of the unpopularity of the character, I view that as a missed opportunity.

Black history is a series of missing chapters from British history. I'm trying to put those bits back in.

I'll say there's a lot of good athletes out there, but the key thing that I see missing is being able to put it all together in order to tell a story. In every match you can tell a story.

Audiences are very willing to be taken somewhere, and to ask an audience beforehand what it wants is probably, I think, a mistake. Much better you should tell them what you want and hope they agree with it.

I don't like docudramas. Documentaries should not go together with fiction, or half-fiction or quarter-fiction. The two should not go together. They cannot mix.

We like epic stories, we like adventure, we like epic fights, so if you can mix a great story that can also really teach someone about a different experience, you have the potential to really help people.

Our minds aren't bound by a chronological corset. When thinking and dreaming, past, present and future are mixed up. That's also possible for a writer.

When you work with somebody else, you automatically get a mixed voice. You hope it will benefit the story. But you don't know what the result will be.

I don't like family stories forcefully mixed with commercial elements.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' wasn't about me.

If you think about it, most cinema is built along 19th-century models. You would hardly think that the cinema had discovered James Joyce sometimes.

I love 'Boardwalk Empire,' but there were moments where I thought it didn't have the constant through-line that 'Breaking Bad' did and 'Better Call Saul' does.