Quotes About Storytelling

Most memoir writers will tell you that the hardest part of writing a memoir isn't what to include, but what to leave out.

My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly.

Writing 'Men We Reaped' broke me in different ways at different spots in the drafting process. The first draft was hard because I was just getting it out. In some ways, that draft failed. I was really just telling the story, not making assessments - this happened, then this. Just putting those facts down on paper was really painful.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

When you're writing a screenplay, it's like you're dreaming the film for yourself again and again and again until it becomes almost like a memory before you make it.

Elvis Costello's song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It's storytelling and it's deeply intelligent and clever.

When you think about archaeology, archaeology is the only field that allows us to tell the story of 99 percent of our history prior to 3,000 B.C. and writing.

I'm writing all the books I wish I had when I was a kid.

When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from a distance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived, you know?

We live in our tales of ourselves, she thought, and ignore as best we can the contradictions, and the lapses, and the abrasions of plot against our mortal souls...

You might forget a story, but you can never unhear a story.

We live in our tales of ourselves. . . and ignore as best we can the contradictions, and the lapses, and the abrasions of plot against our mortal souls. . .

After all, a book can be set aside for weeks, or for good. (Burned in the grate.) Alternatively, a story can be adored for centuries. But it cannot be derailed. A plot, whether abandoned by a reader or pursued rapturously, remains itself, and gets where it is headed even if nobody is looking. It is progressive and inevitable as the seasons. Winter still comes after autumn though you may have died over the summer.

The story is told in so many ways, depending on who is doing the telling, and what needs to be heard at the time.

Oh, the accident necessary to fiction!

You might forget a story, but you can never unhear a story. By that token, you might forget an event, but you can never go back to living as you did before its hidden influence was applied upon you.

But those are legends and lore; they are faith and fictions. Not everyone is a character in a story.

Es la fe lo que mueve montañas, no los hechos. Los hechos no generan fe; la fe necesita un relato que la apoye: una historia significativa que inspire confianza en ti y renueve la esperanza de que tus ideas ofrecen realmente lo que prometes. La influencia genuina va más allá de lograr que las personas hagan lo que quieres que hagan. Significa que la gente toma tu relevo porque creen en ti.» Annette Simmons

She would speak her story in Spanish and la señora Maureen would tell hers in English; it was obvious to her that the two languages did not carry equal weight.

And I? I drink, I burn, I gather dreams. And sometimes I tell a story. Because Promethea asks me for a bowl of words before she goes to sleep.

The difference between a novelist and a historian is this: that the former tells lies deliberately and for the fun of it; the historian tells lies and imagines he is telling the truth.

No philosophy, no analysis, no aphorism, be it ever so profound, can compare in intensity and richness of meaning with a properly narrated story.

The holes of oblivion do not exist. Nothing human is that perfect, and there are simply too many people in the world to make oblivion possible. One man will always be left alive to tell the story.

Farewell, farewell, said the swallow, with a heavy heart, as he left the warm countries, to fly back into Denmark. There he had a nest over the window of a house in which dwelt the writer of fairy tales. The swallow sang Tweet, tweet, and from his song came the whole story.