Quotes About Narrative

It's only when you've pieced together a story in several different ways that you realise where the holes are, discover the knowledge that is still missing, the questions you still need to ask.

But Nonor always said that the Fates don't carve, they weave. Isla does her best to make sure her sister always remembers that. The Fates take the threads that we make from the things we do, Nonor would say, the choices we make, big ones and small ones, all of them, and they weave them in and out, through and under, all the time. They never stop their weave. But they can only use the threads we give them.

I've always gone on the stage and told my stories. I am adventurer and a bard; I come home and I tell my story. Above all, I am a self-made man.

Mark's focus is kept squarely on Jesus's ministry; he is uninterested either in Jesus's birth or, perhaps surprisingly, in Jesus's resurrection, as he writes nothing at all about either event.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

What do the hieroglyphs tell us of what it was like to live under the lash, building the pyramids? Do we talk of that? Do we? No, we talk of the magnificence and majesty of the Egyptians. Of the Romans. Of Saint Petersburg, and nothing of the bones of the hundred thousand slaves that it is built on.

First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.

When I was growing up here, slavery was hardly ever mentioned," said Regina. "Or people would say that the slaves were happy and well looked after, and the Civil War was about states' rights and honor. You still hear that, of course, but we are finally making some progress. The best thing we can do about our awful history is to acknowledge it openly and honestly.

Narrative history fell out of fashion for many years in the 1970s and 1980s, as historians everywhere focused on analytical approaches derived mainly from the social sciences. But a variety of recent, large-scale narrative histories have shown that it can be done without sacrificing analytical rigour or explanatory power.

An-Kirilnar is." The Helmsman stopped dead, so abruptly that it took her a moment to realize there were no more words coming. Flicker of shifting light across the optics, there and gone. But this time she saw it for certain. "Angfal?" "Quests are pretexts, Archeth. They are tales told, narrative blankets to wrap you against the cold you cannot bear.

What is history? Any thoughts, Webster?' 'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied, a little too quickly. 'Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated. ... 'Finn?' 'History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation. (quoting Patrick Lagrange)

History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.

Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling.

Perhaps love could never be captured in a definition; it could only ever be captured in a story.

Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't.

Religion decays, the icon remains; a narrative is forgotten, yet its representation still magnetizes.

Quantas vezes contamos a história da nossa vida? Quantas vezes adaptamos, embelezamos, fazemos cortes matreiros? E, quanto mais a vida avança, menos são os que à nossa volta desafiam o nosso relato, para nos lembrar que a nossa vida não é a nossa vida, é só a história que contámos sobre a nossa vida. Que contámos aos outros mas — principalmente — a nós próprios.

Was this their exact exchange? Almost certainly not. Still, it is my best memory of their exchange.

I need to return briefly to a few incidents that have grown into anecdotes, to some approximate memories which time has deformed into certainty.

It had all begun, very precisely, he told his mind, on the morning of the 28th of January 1936, at Arkhangelsk railway station. No, his mind responded, nothing begins just like that, on a certain date at a certain place. It all began in many places, and at many times, some even before you were born, in foreign countries, and in the minds of others. —

My own [story] is the simplest ... it hardly amounts to more than a convincing proof of my existence - and yet I find it the hardest to begin.

Sejarah bukanlah apa yang terjadi. Sejarah hanyalah apa yang dituturkan sejarawan kepada kita.

Hoe vaak vertellen we ons eigen levensverhaal? Hoe vaak stellen we bij, verfraaien we, laten we handig dingen weg? En hoe langer het leven doorgaat, hoe minder er om ons heen overblijven om onze versie te betwisten, ons eraan te herinneren dat ons leven niet ons leven is, maar alleen het verhaal dat wij erover verteld hebben. Verteld aan anderen, maar - voornamelijk - aan onzelf.

History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.