Quotes About Storytelling

These groups, who by all rights should know what they stand for, devote a surprising amount of time telling their own story, reminding each other precisely what they stand for—then repeating it ad infinitum.

Successful groups are attuned to the same truth as the starlings: Purpose isn't about tapping into some mystical internal drive but rather about creating simple beacons that focus attention and engagement on the shared goal. Successful cultures do this by relentlessly seeking ways to tell and retell their story. To do this, they build what we'll call high-purpose environments.

What matters is establishing this link and consistently creating engagement around it. What matters is telling the story.

The Queen died. The King died." "The Queen died. And the King died of a broken heart." The first line was fact. The second line was a story. It placed the facts in context, added emotion and made us connect to it by making it memorable.

personal narrative has become more prevalent, and perhaps more urgent, in a time of abundance, when many of us are freer to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose.

Mini-sagas are extremely short stories—just fifty words long…no more, no less.

Storytelling doesn't replace analytical thinking," he says. "It supplements it by enabling us to imagine new perspectives and new worlds…. Abstract analysis is easier to understand when seen through the lens of a well-chosen story."5 Now Denning is spreading his message—and telling his story—to organizations worldwide.

The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers, artists, inventors, and designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, and big picture thinkers.

The monsters want to talk, to share what happened. They want me to remember and write it all down.

Sometimes parents avoid talking about upsetting experiences, thinking that doing so will reinforce their children's pain or make things worse. Actually, telling the story is often exactly what children need, both to make sense of the event and to move on to a place where they can feel better about what happened.

One of the best ways to promote this type of integration is to help retell the story of the frightening or painful experience.

The drive to understand why things happen to us is so strong that the brain will continue to try making sense of an experience until it succeeds. As parents, we can help this process along through storytelling.

If his mother hadn't helped him tell and understand the story, Marco's fears would have been left unresolved and could have surfaced in other ways.

It can be helpful to make a homemade book with pictures or photos to retell an upsetting story, or to prepare your child for a transition, like a new bedtime routine or starting preschool.

works with the right to tell our life stories. When children learn to pay attention to and share their own stories, they can respond in healthy ways to everything from a scraped elbow to a major loss or trauma.

situation. But notice how Laura drew the story out of her son, letting him take an active role in the storytelling process. She acted primarily as a facilitator, helping get the facts of the event straight. This is how stories empower us to move forward and master the moments when we feel out of control.

A compelling narrative fosters an illusion of inevitability.

A story is about significant events and memorable moments, not about time passing.

I don't intentionally make my films with the express goal of surprising the viewer.

It is easy to force a reader or viewer to interact. The trick is in making them want to interact, and in letting the story unfold hand-in-hand with that.

Ratings have changed, viewer habits have changed and the options for the audience have grown enormously, but I don't think how you tell a story is fundamentally different.

I didn't watch much television growing up, and before I did 'Boston Legal,' I had no understanding of what it was like for a viewer to look forward to finding out what was going to happen the next week.

I've always wanted to be a songwriter and a storyteller and somebody who conveys a feeling to the listener or the viewer.

I wanted to write a story that demanded the viewer's attention.