Quotes About Narrative

All he had ever wanted was to tell—in the best possible words, arranged in the best possible order—the stories inside him.

But there was one thing he actually did believe in that bordered on the magical, or at least the beyond-pedestrian, and that was the duty a writer owed to a story.

Either it's a good plot or it isn't. And if it's not a good plot, the best writing isn't going to help. And if it is, the worst writing isn't going to hurt it.

I just care about the story. Either it's a good plot or it isn't. And if it's not a good plot, the best writing isn't going to help. And if it is, the worst writing isn't going to hurt it.

If you keep telling the same sad small story, you will keep loving the same sad small life.

If you keep telling the same sad, small story, you will keep living the same sad, small life.

Your only responsibility as a writer is to be true to the story that has chosen you as its writer.

Sometime reality is too complex. Stories give it form.

How stupid lovers can be! But if they were not, there would be no story.

I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.

I have always thought of a myth as something that never was, but is always happening

Don't you think it would be interesting if you could read the story of your life - written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author?

Scratch an Irishman and he'll bleed a story.

I feel as though I have gotten ahead of myself somewhat. All stories are about family, even those that pretend not to be. So I should tell you about mine.

Ce n'est pas une autobiographie qu'on devrait écrire mais dix, mais cent, car, si nous n'avons qu'une vie, nous disposons d'innombrables manières de (nous) la raconter.

They were working hard at their own myth.

If you continually write and read yourself as a fiction, you can change what's crushing you.

A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order.

A history lesson disguised as a story,

My face has changed with the years and has enough history in it to give audiences something to work with.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

You know, I thought we could use a good myth about technology to help guide us through these particular modern waters right now.

Generations are fictions.