Quotes About Storytelling

The family historian must master the art of storytelling. What, after all, is truth without anecdote, history without events, explanation without narration--or yet life itself without a story? Stories are not just the wells from which we drink most deeply but at the same time the golden threads that hold and bind--Ariadne's precious string that leads us through the labyrinth that connects living present and the living past.

And as much as history serves as a medium for discovering the past, it also is, we confess, a means to invent it.

If I've learned one thing in the last few days it is that every question does not need to be answered. A story is not true just because of it's literal veracity. It is the message, what it teaches, that counts.

These narrative moves reduce dissonance and help maintain a sense of control and personal unity.

But the reason that writers like Harlan and Lee don't outline is that they enjoy the serendipity, the surprises that arise when they're not constricted by the steel girdle of an outline. And I get that too. Some of the best plot twists in my work have been ones that I didn't plan on, including the ending to PARANOIA. One of the great pleasures of writing fiction is living in the story so that you "experience" it the way your characters do.

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.

Well, sir, you must know, as you didn't hear it afore, that there was a king, called King O'Toole, who was a fine old king in the old ancient times,

Preferisco raccontare il seguito al presente, il che renderà l'avventura più anodina, le toglierà quell'aura di sacro che conferiscono i tempi passati, dall'imperfetto al passato remoto: il presente è il tempo senza sorprese, un tempo ingenuo, il tempo in cui si vivono le cose come arrivano, ancora nuove e vive, è il tempo dell'infanzia, quello che mi si addiceva.

Purdy hardly ever gets to the end of his stories

United States HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 195 Broadway

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37

Did I ever tell you the difference between a Northern fairy tale and a Southern one?" she asked him, indulging herself and letting her head rest on his shoulder. God, he felt good. Her man. Where her head was meant to lie, right there, on him. "What's the difference?" "A Northern one starts 'once upon a time,' while a Southern one starts 'y'all ain't going to believe this shit.

This isn't a thrift store… We're not selling them something less expensive, we're selling them something more special. We have to tell them the story of what we're showing them. And then we have to show them how they can be the new heroine in the story.

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.

Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Neal Stephenson, Richard K. Morgan, Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Terry Pratchett, Terry Brooks

Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny

That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Oh, and by the way... there's no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Also bullshit. Sorry, kid. Deal with it.

Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny.

That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

But somewhere along the way our ability to tell (and to listen to) stories was lost. As life speeded up, as the possibility of both communication and annihilation became ever more instantaneous, people came to have less tolerance for that which comes only over time. The demand for perfection and the craving for ever more control over a world that paradoxically seemed ever more out of control eventually bred impatience with story.

DÄ›v?e Å¡lo dom? a vyprávÄ›lo podivný pÃ…â"¢íbÄ›h o záÃ…â"¢ícím liÅ¡ákovi s laskavýma o?ima – pÃ…â"¢íbÄ›h, kterému v??ili jen hodnÄ› mladí a hodnÄ› staÃ…â"¢í lidé; totiž ti, kteÃ…â"¢í porozumÄ›li dítÄ›ti, a ti, kteÃ…â"¢í porozumÄ›li liÅ¡ákovi.

So I picked separate passages from books that I had already read and wove them together into different stories, one with no end and no beginning, all turmoil, a lawless world where characters change identities in the middle of a scene...

Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.

An awfully beautiful story, but it isn't mine.