Quotes About Storytelling

So often corporate America, business America, are the worst communicators, because all they understand are facts, and they cannot tell a story. They know how to explain their quarterly results, but they don't know how to explain what they mean.

One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.

I don't think there's any story worth dying for, but I do think there are stories worth taking risks for.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the nonprofit world, the right picture is worth tens of thousands of dollars. I use PhotoPad to sync our Samasource Flickr account to my iPad and slip it out of my purse at cocktail parties to tell our story.

On 'Avatar', I learned that it's worth taking some risks and doing some weird little things with characters or having an off-joke here and there, even if it's only for 5 percent of the audience.

I firmly believe that you can't get a good movie without risking a bad movie. A good adaptation of your book is worth it because it is such a wonderful experience to see your world translated onto the screen.

One of the things we've always tried to do is help others with our story. Whether it's with the infertility issues, whether it's with the breast cancer, we said we're gonna turn these negatives into positives. And if we can help others by sharing our story, then it's worth it.

Screenwriting and the movie stuff could all disappear tomorrow, but to sit down with my laptop and still tell stories is my day job. I didn't believe I'd actually get to do it for a living.

Justin Lin, the writer and director of the teenage-wasteland drama 'Better Luck Tomorrow,' a shrewdly tense piece of storytelling, recognizes that sometimes it's good for a filmmaker to stir up trouble.

The still image continues to have a ton of strength. An image taken out of context from one fraction of a second to the next can tell a story, and if photographers are looking to tell a certain story, they can curate those slices of time to their advantage.

I stole a ton of film language from Steven Soderbergh and 'The Limey.' It's the definition of elliptical. It was the first movie I remember that introduced me to storytelling that isn't just one scene after another, and that things can be mixed up in the way that real experiences can.

When I was cast in 'Batman v Superman,' I was sent a huge stack of comics. They provided a ton of information about Cyborg and how he has evolved as a character over the years.

There are so many elements that make 'Orange' spectacular - the writing, the acting, what we talk about - but we can't neglect the music of the show. It sets a fantastic tone.

Tone is everything in TV.

Doing 'CSI: N.Y.' is not 'CSI.' Doing 'CSI: Miami' is not 'CSI: N.Y.,' it's 'CSI: Miami.' It has a very, very specific tone. It has a very specific look. It has a specific way in which they tell their stories that's different from 'CSI: N.Y.' and 'CSI.'

One of the things I do well - I think, anyway - is combining different tones.

I like raconteurs; I like conversation. I liked the 'Tonight Show' when it was 90 minutes, I like when people aren't plugging things per se, and they're just in the moment being interesting.

With a standard editorial cartoon, you're taking tons of information and synthesizing it down to a single bite - a single moment in time. With animated editorial cartoons, it's more storytelling.

I buy tons of magazines. They're a big part of how I research characters. And I keep them around and go back to them years later. I just have stacks.

They always compare my 'Crazy Story' to Meek's 'Tony Story.'

I've been so lucky to work with some great, great writers: Tony Kushner and Yasmina Reza.

I made Tony a person. For me, Tony was real. I made him become a human being, and that affected the animation and everything.

For me, there's a fine line between telling a story that's fictional with lots of details and then removing yourself too much from it, so it's bloodless, a little too fictional.

In high school, I got into a speech class run by a nun who used to put on plays. She put me in a oratorical competitive program. You would tell a story, and they were very corny, something like 'My Childhood Hero.' It was something out of 'Readers Digest.' I always thought it was too much and too dramatic.