Quotes About Storytelling

People loved a good creepy story. The need was almost primal: to hear them, have them chill you, then pass them along, embellished with your own details. Fear was a drug, and these stories were a delivery method.

Because that's what our family does. Pretends that if we don't talk about a thing, it didn't happen. As if we could shape the truth with our stories, or lack thereof.

And, as Rhonda told the story, she thought: this is how the past gets passed down. This is how memories are made. Half-invented, embellished, given a touch of whimsy.

Don't go into great detail describing places and things… You don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

The stories of our lives can be told in so many ways, but no one account, no matter how carefully rendered, is completely true. Words are, at best, only an outline

Don't spoil a good story by telling the truth.

But no matter what you call it, it seems that every couple has two stories- the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version, best left alone.

It's not about the actors, though, Peter. That's the thing. It's about the writing.

sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.

Are stories true? ... They're magic, they're not about real people walking around today. So they're fake? No, no. Stories are a different kind of true.

I have tried to use memory and invention together, like two hands engaged in the same muddy work of digging up the past.

Writing for children is an art in itself, and a most interesting one.

n'est-ce pas

Ik weet het nog goed,' begon Wurm melodramatisch. 'Het was een donkere nacht.

Il y a des hommes qui ont le pouvoir de raconter des histoires que chacun croit être siennes : ce sont les écrivains. »

My mom has a tape from when I was, like, 2 years old, talking with my grandma, telling her a story that's really elaborate about werewolves and wolves.

I'm an author, Calista. The older I get, the more I'm convinced that a truth only makes sense when it is revealed in the form of a story. Without that context it is simply a random event with no meaning.

I told him a story, Calista. People will follow you anywhere if you tell them a tale they desperately want to believe. It's astonishing, really, how gullible even the most skeptical person can be if he or she wants to believe.

You prefer fantastical endings rather than those which illustrate reality," Slater said. "In my view there are cheerful endings and sad endings but they are all fantastical by definition—otherwise they would not be classified as fiction.

Let me enjoy my fan-wanking. Your what? Let me arrange the story to meet my own personal needs.

Historian: A broad-gauge gossip.

A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty.

La Fontaine avait illustré, dans La Cigale et la Fourmi, ce qui était la morale de son

People like my grandmother, who have no home but in memory, learn to be very skilled in the art of recollection.