Quotes About Storytelling

I do not over-intellectualise the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Your business plan should tell a compelling story. It should present a problem that you are going to fix.

I start off meaning to tell you a story, and then I get sidetracked with something that interests me, and I go wandering off all over the place; yet here we are, nicely on schedule, at the point where I have just met Phaedra and am just starting off on the long process of getting betrothed to her. In fact, we are here rather ahead of time; so, while we are waiting for the main stream of my narrative to catch up with us, I shall tell you about my first meeting with the Spartans.

What difference does it make if the Gospel is mostly a lie? It's an engrossing story and the words of its hero are excellent words to live by, even today.

I want a good story, with a beginning, middle and end.

They will blow it, she thought. Each will cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow—some long-ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves. And each one will rewrite that story forever, knowing the plot, guessing the theme, inventing its meaning and dismissing its origin.

She knew Paul D was adding something to her life—something she wanted to count on but was scared to... His waiting eyes and awful human power. The mind of him that knew her own. Her story was bearable because it was his as well—to tell, to refine and tell again. The things neither knew about the other—the things neither had word-shapes for—well, it would come in time.

I can say that my narrative project is as difficult today as it was then.

I need to use everything—sound, image, performance—to get at the full meaning of the story

And the lives of these old black women were synthesized in their eyes—a purée of tragedy and humor, wickedness and serenity, truth and fantasy.

It was a funny thing: once you tell your story to others it becomes more like fiction and less like truth. A layer of performance is added to it, removing you further from the real thing.

And is it any wonder that the poor woman broke out into fairies when she had been deprived of any fiction in her youth?

Stories aren't facts, Cait, they're not details. Stories are feelings. You've got your feelings, haven't you?" "Too many," I said. "Well, that's all you need." He put his hand on mine. "Cry yourself a story, love. It works. Believe me." So that's what I did, I cried myself a story. And this is it.

I like four-hour movies.

Tragedy, Lazaar told her, is the story in which the liar is lying to himself; in comedy, the liar is lying to everyone else.

The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story, whether in print, orating, writing it down or having people acting it out. That's why I'm always hoping society never collapses because the first ones to go will be entertainers.

how much of what he told me of his past was true and how much he made up to hold my interest.

Does Carthage even have forests? Did Virgil know for sure or was it just convenient for his story? Virgil was a professional liar. This would not be the only place where he pruned the truth until it was as artificial as an espaliered pear tree against a wall, forced into an expedient shape and bearing the demanded fruit.

Then someone finished a story, someone else paused to think of the right word, and a silence opened and spread through the brightly lit room.

There's a positive side to film and television, the sense of feeding into the theater... Your fans will follow you, hopefully, and be open-minded to see you play other things and experience other stories you want to tell.

What would it have been like to live back then, when stories colored the world and even the sky listened?

The best fiction is true.

He had told her the story of his brave ancestors in the army, but why didn't he ever speak of his family here and now?

Some stories, some visions, demand celluloid film and what it can deliver.