Quotes About Narrative

I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language.

The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand

A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira's past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.

The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest-for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both-must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting, in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story.

Do you believe that every story must have a beginning and an end? In ancient times a story could end only in two ways: having passed all the tests, the hero and the heroine married, or else they died. The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.

A child's pleasure in listening to stories lies partly in waiting for things he expects to be repeated: situations, phrases, formulas. Just as in poems and songs the rhymes help to create the rhythm, so in prose narrative there are events that rhyme.

You're the absolute protagonist of this book, very well; but do you believe that gives you the right to have carnal relations with all the female characters?

Do you believe that every story must have a beginning and an end? In ancient times a story could end only in tow ways: having passed all the tests, the hero and the heroine married, or else they died. The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.

Si una noche de invierno un viajero, fuera del poblado de Malbork, asomándose desde la abrupta costa sin temor al viento y al vértigo, mira hacia abajo donde la sombra se adensa en una red de líneas que se entrelazan, en una red de líneas que se intersecan sobre la alfombra de hojas iluminadas por la luna en torno a una fosa vacía, «¿Cuál historia espera su fin allá abajo?», pregunta, ansioso de escuchar el relato.

Chi comanda al racconto non è la voce: è l'orecchio

The trouble is that once upon a time they all began like that, all novels. There was somebody who went along a lonely street and saw something that attracted his attention, something that seemed to conceal a mystery, or a premonition; then he asked for explanations and they told him a long story…

La mia operazione è stata il più delle volte una sottrazione di peso; ho cercato di togliere peso ora alle figure umane, ora ai corpi celesti, ora alle città; soprattutto ho cercato di togliere peso alla struttura del racconto e al linguaggio.

The tale is not beautiful if nothing is added to it"—in other words, its value consists in what is woven and rewoven into it.

It is not the voice that commands the story, it is the ear

Chi comanda alla racconto non è la voce: è l'orecchio.

I continue to gaze into the valley bottom of the memory. And my fear now is that as soon as a memory forms it immediately takes on the wrong light, mannered, sentimental as war and youth always are, becomes a piece of narrative written in the style of the time, which can't tell us how things really were but only how we thought we saw them, thought we said them. I don't know if I am destroying the past or saving it, the past hidden in that besieged village.

Memory's images, once they are fixed with words, are erased.

Sire, désormais je t'ai parlé de toutes les villes que je connais. — Il en reste une dont tu ne parles jamais. Marco Polo baissa la tête. — Venise, dit le Khan. Marco sourit. — Chaque fois que je fais la description d'une ville, je dis quelque chose de Venise. — Quand je t'interroge sur d'autres villes, je veux t'entendre parler d'elles. Et de Venise, quand je t'interroge sur Venise.

A lição que se pode tirar de um mito reside na literalidade da narrativa, não nos acréscimos que lhe impomos do exterior.

The folktale must be re-created each time. At the core of the narrative is the storyteller, a prominent figure in every village or hamlet, who has his or her own style and appeal. And it is through this individual that the timeless folktale is linked with the world of its listeners and with history.

Lo que dirige el relato no es la voz: es el oído.

For awhile now, everything has been going wrong for me; it seems to me that in the world there now exists only stories that remain suspended or get lost along the way.

Every animal, every object, every relationship took on beneficial or malign powers that came to be called magical powers but should, rather, have been called narrative powers, potentialities contained in the world, in its ability to link itself to other worlds on the plane of discourse.

O romance que mais me apetecia ler neste momento deveria ter só como força motriz a vontade de contar, de acumular histórias sobre histórias, sem pretender impor uma visão do mundo, só fazer assistir ao seu crescimento, como uma planta, como que um emaralhado de ramos e folhas...