Quotes About Narrative

historically fairy tales were women's stories, passed orally in a time when women didn't have many rights.

The teller of the tale is nothing compared to the tale itself.

De um modo geral, as vítimas da história, os grupos menos poderosos que foram derrotados, têm tido apenas uma pequena oportunidade de serem recordados. O principal quadro de referência do que é recordado como história continua sendo até hoje um Estado, e os livros de história ainda são, sobretudo, crônicas de Estados.

There is much which we must leave, whether we like it or not, to the un-scientific' narrative method of the professional historian.

The formula Muscovy + Ukraine = Russia does not feature in the Russians' own version of their history; but it is fundamental.

You like to tell true stories, don't you?' he asked, and I answered, 'Yes, I like to tell stories that are true.' Then he asked, 'After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it? Only then will you understand what happened and why. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.

But just because no-one sang the story, no-one wrote the book, no-one filmed it, that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

History is a creative process (or as Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "a set of lies agreed upon"). The world happens as it happens, but we construct what we remember and what we forget. And people will eventually do that to us, too.

Self-deception allows us to create a consistent narrative for ourselves that we actually believe. I'm not saying that the truth doesn't matter. It does. But self-deception is how we survive.

In Western culture, virtually everything is understood through the process of storytelling, often to the detriment of reality. When we recount history, we tend to use the life experience of one person — the "journey" of a particular "hero," in the lingo of the mythologist Joseph Campbell — as a prism for understanding everything else.

It's difficult to cope with the infinite variety of the past, and so we apply filters and settle on a few famous names.

My imagination has problems with plot mechanics.

A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart.

That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.

Fuck me. I'm so tired of being me. Me beautiful. Me ugly. Blonde. Brunette. A million fucking fashion makeovers that only leave me trapped being me. Who I was before the accident is just a story now. Everything before now, before now, before now, is just a story I carry around. I guess that would apply to anybody in the world. What I need is a new story about who I am. What I need to do is fuck up so bad I can't save myself.

People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future.

When you understand, that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we'll figure out who you're going to be.

Some stories, you use up. Others use you up.

Pretty much always. We need to tell the story of our life to someone.

The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact.

Your past is just a story. And once you realise this, it has no power over you.

Some stories, she'd say, the more you tell them, the faster you use them up. Those kind, the drama burns off, and every version, they sound more silly and flat. The other kind of story, it uses you up. The more you tell it, the stronger it gets. Those kind of stories only remind you how stupid you were. Are. Will always be.

So this is why I write. Because most times, your life isn't funny the first time through. Most times, you can hardly stand it. That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can't control life, at least you can control your version.

I could imagine myself becoming one of Marla's stories.