Quotes About Storytelling

For the story that shapes a child's universe also shapes the child—and by the child, the man thereafter. The memory of a burning fairy tale can govern behavior as truly as remembered fire will caution against fire forever. —WALTER WANGERIN

Youth in our Sunday school class can repeat almost verbatim some obscure parable we dramatized last year, and yet they forget the core doctrinal statement we taught last week. Why is this? Why does story stick with us for so long?

Theologian Stephen Crites says sacred stories are like dwelling places—like booths or tabernacles. We don't tell these stories as much as we inhabit them.

When was the last time you heard a long passage from a novel read aloud during Sunday school or worship? Or how about the last time a youth pastor subverted his or her "talk" through satire or parable rather than proof texting the six main points? Yet

Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically. —MADELEINE L'ENGLE It's

Everyone's talking about metaphor and the nature of narrative, as if these are new discoveries rather than the very building blocks of language and understanding (not to mention faith).

Tell me a story," says the poem by Robert Penn Warren. "In this century, and moment, of mania . . . Tell me a story of deep delight.

we must become bards: poets charged with the task of keeping and imparting the stories, language, values, and beliefs of a culture.

Our songs and our stories do more than persuade others that an order exists: they build the house; they weave a world; they companion our listeners into the experience of such ordered cosmos. —WALTER WANGERIN JR

Storytelling is our task with the next generation, and it starts with loving the story ourselves and telling it as though we believe it—because we believe it.

Something more is going on with Jesus' storytelling than clarification or embellishment: he's out to rock our world.

Writes Native American storyteller Ray Buckley: A child relates storytelling . . . to human contact, and that contact becomes as much a part of the story as the story itself. As adults, we experience storytelling in much the same fashion. Isn't it interesting that in many cultures, storytelling is viewed as a form of touch?7

confirmation is one of the most important and serendipitous storytelling opportunities we in youth ministry will ever have.

If we trust Jesus' own storytelling approach, we must trust the Spirit to work in and through story without the need to interpret every metaphor, every parable, every time. But

Postmoderns must have the opportunity to experience the story as a story without the gospel being continually reduced to mere message.

There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells. —FLANNERY O'CONNOR9

I never wanted to be a literary writer. I wanted to be an entertainer. All I wanted was to give what a lot of writers had given me: a good time on a bad day.

By the time I sit down and face the blank page I am raring to go. I tell it as if I'm talking to my best friend or one of my grandchildren.

The difference between a fairy tale and a sea tale? A fairy tale starts with "Once upon a time". A sea tale starts with " This ain't no $hit"!

I like doing sequels. Basically, I think it's a fun thing to follow characters in time. In real time.

We've had fiction from the time of cave drawings. I think fiction, storytelling, and narrative in general will always exist in some form.

To aspiring writers, I say : Don't give up. Storytelling has been an integral part of the human condition since the beginning of time. Don't let anyone tell you your dreams don't have value. They do.

When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had a bad time.

It does not seem to me that I have the right to foist a story on people, most of whom are children who should be learning all the time, unless I am learning from it too.