Quotes About Storytelling

Washington Irving

In the effort to tell a whole story, to see it whole and clear, I have had to imagine more than I have known.

Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told.

To write a novel is to dream a story and write it down on the page. That's why the power of a really good story is one of true magic. Good stories engage the reader utterly in the writer's dream so the dream becomes theirs, too.

We're professional liars, aren't we? It's our job to keep the story interesting.

A necessary part of our intelligence is on the line as the oral tradition becomes less and less important. There was a time throughout our land when it was common for stories to be told and retold, a most valuable exercise, for the story retold is the story reexamined over and over again at different levels of intellectual and emotional growth.

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.

You build the best possible story from the information available to you, and if it is a good story, you believe it. Paradoxically, it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to fit into the puzzle. Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.

Many parents have discovered, perhaps with some guilt, that they can read a story to a child while thinking of something else.

You cannot help dealing with the limited information you have as if it were all there is to know. You build the best possible story from the information available to you, and if it is a good story, you believe it. Paradoxically, it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to fit into the puzzle. Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.

System 1 is not prone to doubt. It suppresses ambiguity and spontaneously constructs stories that are as coherent as possible. Unless the message is immediately negated, the associations that it evokes will spread as if the message were true.

Uma história é sobre eventos significativos e momentos memoráveis, não sobre a passagem do tempo. A negligência com a duração é normal em uma narrativa, e o fim muitas vezes define seu caráter. [...] É assim que o eu recordativo funciona: ele compõe histórias e as retém para futura referência.

And it is natural for System 1 to generate overconfident judgments, because confidence, as we have seen, is determined by the coherence of the best story you can tell from the evidence at hand. Be warned: your intuitions will deliver predictions that are too extreme and you will be inclined to put far too much faith in them.

Good stories provide a simple and coherent account of people's actions and intentions.

People who have experienced nothing love to tell stories while people who have experienced a great deal suddenly have no stories to tell at all.

Wir sind immer in Geschichten

Aber seien wir doch ehrlich, es ist ein seltsamer Beruf. Ein wenig lächerlich für einen erwachsenen Menschen. Sie sitzen daheim und denken sich Geschichten aus, die nie passiert sind.

Erzählen, das bedeutet einen Bogen spannen, wo zunächst keiner ist, den Entwicklungen Struktur und Folgerichtigkeit gerade dort verleihen, wo die Wirklichkeit nichts davon bietet.

Actors are good liars, writers are good liars with good memories.

To be alive is to have a story to tell.

Éramos su cuentista, nos hemos convertido en su contable.

Eravamo il suo narratore, siamo diventati il suo contabile. «Se è così, allora stasera niente tivù!» Eh! Sì... Sì... La televisione elevata alla dignità di ricompensa... E, come corollario, la lettura relegata al rango di courvé. È nostra, questa gran trovata...

Non si riuscirà mai a far capire a un ragazzo che, la sera, è nel bel mezzo di una storia avvincente, non si riuscirà mai a fargli capire, con una dimostrazione limitata a lui stesso, che deve interrompere la lettura e andare a letto.- È Kafka a scrivere questo nel diario, il piccolo Franz, che papà avrebbe preferito veder passare tutte le notti della sua vita a fare conti.

Signorine, non è certo sotto le specie del vocabolario e della sintassi che la Letteratura inizia a sedurci. Ricordate semplicemente come le Lettere entrano nella nostra vita. Nella più tenera età, appena non ci viene più cantata la canzone che fa sorridere e addormentare il neonato, si apre l'era dei racconti. Il bambino li beve come prima beveva il latte. Pretende il seguito e la ripetizione dell'incanto; è un pubblico implacabile ed eccelso.