Quotes About Storytelling

If you just write the kinds of stories you think others will want to read, you'll be competing with cartoonists who are far more enthusiastic for that kind of comic than you are, and they'll kick your ass every time.

Q: Why is 6 scared of 7? A: Because 7 ate 9 and 10.

If you can avoid the grammatical bog of trying to wow English professors with your sentences, then you're well on your way to getting the reader to turn one page and then the next.

Sometimes stories have too much power. They change who people think you are.

There's a wealth of literature out there which, hopefully, will be, you know, exploded in the future, and I personally find it very rewarding to be involved with classic storytelling, and sort of legendary characters.

Lederman is also a charismatic personality, famous among his colleagues for his humor and storytelling ability. One of his favorite anecdotes relates the time when, as a graduate student, he arranged to bump into Albert Einstein while walking the grounds at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. The great man listened patiently as the eager youngster explained the particle-physics research he was doing at Columbia, and then said with a smile, "That is not interesting.

Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right into my mouths.

Shakespeare tells the same stories over and over in so many guises that it takes a long time before you notice.

When brands talk about themselves in real time, it's just boring faster.

I used to make up stuff in my bio all the time, that I used to be a professional ice-skater and stuff like that. I found it so inspirational. Why not make myself cooler than I am?

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.

I am still trying to find out things. And I inevitably tell myself the story in different ways every time I think about it.

In a general sense, to convert any short story, novel, play, or opera into a movie, you have to re-rig it. Even though they're all narratives over time, they're very different forms.

At some point, you have an opportunity to not be a first-time filmmaker anymore. You can embrace the genre and show the world how you can tell stories on a bigger scale.

I love the long-form format of television. I love being able to develop a character, over a long period of time.

Oral storytelling goes back so long ago, and those stories that were told orally were always layered and changed with time.

The independent film business is pretty much gone. Now you can do it in a format where you actually get to develop a character over a period of time.

I am a storyteller and a researcher, and I'm sorry the world has a hard time straddling the tension of those two things, but that's who I am.

Do you remember when we were kids and played that game 'Telephone'? It was like that. The first time I heard about it, someone said he'd been shot 17 times.

I don't think I've ever really pursued telling my story, but I think things come to you at the right time.

Documentaries are unpredictable. You never know what will turn up, and the drama occurs in real time. But if you listen to people, a narrative always emerges.

I think seven years is a great time to end a series.

I don't think they knew exactly where they were going with the character, but they lay those stories out ahead of time, so they had some idea where they wanted it to go.

Strangely, I always have a lot of cut scenes. I keep writing shorter and shorter scripts, thinking that this time, I'll get all my scenes in.