Quotes About Storytelling

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many wiles.

And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too.

But...even true stories have to be invented sometimes to be remembered.

There is a kind of structure for a story that was peculiarly compelling for the radio. I thought I had invented it atom-by-atom sitting in an editing booth in Washington on M Street when I was in my 20s. Then I found out that it is one of the oldest forms of telling a story - it was the structure of a sermon.

Most novels, I find, are three times longer than they need to be. Very little happens, and I don't want to waste my time with them.

After we air the call, it's gone. I always thought, 'What a waste.' That's such a powerful story, and there's no way to revisit it or share it.

I don't write fight scenes in comics all that well. I think they're a waste of space unless they can move a story forward in some compelling fashion. You've only got twenty-two pages to work with. Why throw that away on a set of meaningless punches?

If we keep making things based on violence and platform jumping, you don't need Ellen Page to do this, to be honest. It would be a waste of time and a waste of money.

Write the story you need to tell and want to read. It's impossible to know what others want, so don't waste time trying to guess.

We have to make movies where we do not think this is for the American market or this is for the Chinese market. We have to make a good movie that anyone would just want to sit down and watch because love, language, culture transcend everything.

The average Indian doesn't care about Hollywood movies because they have far too many movies of their own to watch, to miss, and I hope a story like 'Million Dollar Arm,' that is actually about India and deals with these two Indian kids, resonates over there and makes people want to go and see the movie.

What do I geek out about? What am I? Hmmm. I love movies. I watch movies. I like big, sweeping epics, like Ed Zwick stuff: 'The Last Samurai,' 'Legends of the Fall,' 'Blood Diamond,' 'Glory.'

But I think we're also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They've seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There's so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

I always write these movies that are far too big for any paying customer to sit down and watch from beginning to end, and so I always have this big novel that I have to adapt into a movie as I go.

Also, if you watch the film once, there are lots of things that you won't get because there are punch lines in the first act, the setup to which isn't until the second act.

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing - no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn't happen that much anymore.

You go to a theater, you're in a darkened room, and you watch someone that you don't really know how many children they have or what their father's nickname might be; you don't have references and databases and rumors and half-truths - you're just transported by their storytelling.

I'm not interested in doing 'Star Wars.' It's an amazing movie, but that's not my gift. I tell the stories that I tell that relate to the people who love what I do. That is the place and the path that I know I am supposed to be on. The minute I try and go do something else, it will be amazing to watch how quickly that don't work.

You could time a suburban story by your watch: it lasts as long as it takes a small furry animal that's lonely to find friends, or a small furry animal that's lost to find its parents; it lasts as long as a quick avowal of love; it lasts precisely as long as the average parent is disposed on a Tuesday night to spend reading aloud to children.

If you watch the scroll at the very start of 'A New Hope,' you'll see plenty of references to the story we tell in 'Rogue One.' And I play a rebel General.

I think it's insulting to an audience to make them sit and watch a film and then give them a message in one sentence.

A movie with nothing but violence is not a good movie. But one that is actually entertaining around the horror is one that people will remember and watch again and again.

I feel kind of offended when I watch films, and everything is explained to me - you know, laying out how I should feel from one scene to the next.

I think everyone is introduced to the Peter Pan story when they're very young. Everyone has read the book and watched the Disney film and all that.