Quotes About Storytelling

When I was learning the anthologist's trade many years ago, sitting at the knees—metaphorically speaking, at least—of veteran anthologists like Damon Knight and Robert Silverberg, I was taught that you should always save your strongest and best story for last.

Killt him a b'ar when he was only three.

I guess you can stay sort of true to the story; you don't have to artificially bring the character back from whatever doom you've designed for them, you can tell the story, I suppose, honestly.

Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I'm doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it.

Vedno sem neznansko užival v pripovednem zapeljevanju.Priznam, vše? mi je dramati?nost. Dobra zgodba mora vedno nastaviti pri?akovanja in jih razburljivo in presenetljivo zavla?evati.

For me, a good story is all about setting up expectations and delivering on them in an exciting and surprising way.

Movies are ultimately popular because they give people moments they remember and treasure.

That is why, as Paul Westermeyer observes, "a group who sings together becomes one and remembers its story, and therefore who it is, in a particularly potent way.

Feudal societies don't create great cinema we have great theatre. The egalitarian societies create great cinema. The Americans, the French. Because equality is sort of what the cinema deals with. It deals with stories which don't fall into 'Everybody in their place and who's who ' and all that. But the theatre's full of that.

Hearts and souls are moved by story and he who controls the cultural narrative controls the people.

The real revelation is that subversion of narrative is not a special technique used only by activists and intellectuals. It is the very nature of most storytelling through history. We are all creatures of our times seeking to control the narrative of our times, just as the ancients did. And those who control the cultural narrative, control the culture.

Cosmology is among the oldest subjects to captivate our species. And it's no wonder. We're storytellers, and what could be more grand than the story of creation?

Talking with friends about books harks back to the original impulse behind storytelling, the forging of human bonds. We have told ourselves stories not just, in Joan Didion's phrase, in order to live, but in order to live with one another.

Wish not for treasure you can hold, No gleaming jewels, bright and cold, For finer still than pearl or gold, The treasure of a tale well told...

So here is my story, may it bring Some smiles and a tear or so, It happened once upon a time, Far away, and long ago, Outside the night wind keens and wails, Come listen to me, the Teller of Tales!

a whole generation has grown up without fairy tales.

Next, Lucas began inserting his names and places into a short narrative, not much more than a story fragment, called "The Journal of the Whills." He envisioned borrowing a storytelling device from the old Disney cartoons, showing a storybook—in this case the Journal of the Whills—"falling

As one, the able-bodied men stepped forth; Jim Bowie, despite his fevered state, requested that he be helped across. Just one man remained behind; he was permitted to depart. He would survive to recount this story.23

You just sit down at the typewriter and follow the character around. It's like being a detective. You write page after page after page just finding out who they are. You wait for them to do something interesting.

Fairy tales only happen in movies." -George Melies from The Invention of Hugo Cabret

You can make up your own story when you look at a photo.

In truth I was very pleased with myself and with my story and all that had happened in it. Because you can't help being impressed with your own story. Because if you're not impressed with your own story, then who will be?

I love the challenge of trying to tell a story with words, creating scenes that come alive in the reader's mind. I try to create something every day, even if it's just a few paragraphs.

The art of storytelling and the capacity to listen are on the decline. The result is a more self-absorbed, more anxious, more depressed—and less resilient—population.