Quotes About Narratives

History is made not of facts set in stone but of the stories we tell.

Facts are not created equal: the production of traces is always also the creation of silences.

There are stories to tell that are not songs.

I heard so many stories from Gaomi's peasants that I had an irrepressible urge to write them down. Today, Gaomi's peasants know that they have become famous around the world through my writings, but I think they are a little puzzled by this.

The world is not made of molecules, the world is made of stories.

The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.

Modernity has hitched its wagon to science, a form of discourse that challenges and undermines traditional narratives. But in order to legitimize itself, science needs a story of progress from opinion and superstition to scientific truth and on to universal peace and happiness. The Enlightenment project is inseparable from its legitimizing metanarratives.

If Luke and John were simply constructing narratives to combat Doceticism, they surely shot themselves in the foot with both barrels when they spoke of Jesus appearing through locked doors, disappearing again, sometimes being recognized, sometimes not, and finally ascending into heaven

But if Luke and John were simply constructing narratives to combat Docetism, they surely shot themselves in the foot with both barrels when they spoke of the risen Jesus appearing through locked doors, disappearing again, sometimes being recognized, sometimes not, and finally ascending into heaven.

Some days I hit that wall really hard, and I have to tell myself that I don't believe that stuff anymore. That all the things in my brain, all the little voices whispering that I'm Doing It Wrong, this is just how hegemonies work: by continuous reinforcement; by convincing people that there is only one true way (or a handful of such); by promoting and valuing, over and over, the same narratives without thought to how harmful they can be.

There are also some moving sections about World War II in Anthony Burgess's Any Old Iron, Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman, Kit Reed's At War As Children, Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life, Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard, and Nancy Willard's Things Invisible to See.

The stories could be true, or they could be conjecture; people stuck stories to her like wet plaster. Into what position would they set?

I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.

It is certain that no culture can flourish without narratives of transcendent origin and power

Admito que es un tanto injusto esperar que los educadores encuentren, por sí solos, relatos que puedan reafirmar nuestra cultura nacional. Unas narraciones así deben llegarles, hasta cierto punto, de la esfera política. Si nuestra política está empobrecida simbólicamente, resulta difícil imaginar cómo pueden proporcionar los profesores un objetivo de peso a la educación.

theory includes a transcendent idea, as do all great world narratives.

Le storie, quelle importanti, quelle che cambiano i destini, sono fiumi impetuosi, difficili da imbrigliare. Tu gli metti un ostacolo e loro deviano, trovano un'altra via per fluire.

Berg paid his way with stories.

This is the lesson we had learned: when you don't want to face the consequences of your actions, you focus on the soap opera of public life, with its heroes and villains, its clear narratives.

Inni nie prze?yli niczego podobnego, cho? wys?uchali tych samych opowie?ci

It's possible that some of us cannot help losing ourselves in the sorrows of other people's stories.

First-person American slave narratives should have ceased being written when the last American citizen born into institutionalized slavery died.

Prawda jest jak s?kacz, sk?ada si? z wielu warstw, które kr?c? si? wokó? siebie, raz siebie zawieraj?, a raz same s? zawierane przez inne. Prawda to jest co?, co mo?na wyra?a? wieloma opowie?ciami, bo jest jak ten ogród, do którego weszli m?drcy: ka?dy widzia? co innego.

mitologi?, jako zbiór pouczaj?cych opowie?ci, które pomagaj? ?y?