Quotes About Storytelling

Telling them the story of my life as I knew it (i.e., the last four days). Good times, good times.

We recognize that smile when we see it in the mirror, or on the faces of our friends, at weddings, anniversaries, christenings, or ordinary afternoons. It's the smile of a man realizing he is no longer a kid, and although he has no idea how it happened, he's pretty sure it would make a cool story if he ever gets a spare minute to piece it all together.

I've never heard of anybody getting rid of their prized Exile postcards, much less actually writing on them and sending them through the mail to a girl. I watched these two, laughing over this story at the same kitchen table they've shared for thirty years. I realize that I will never fully understand the millions of bizarre ways that music brings people together.

The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.

There are all kinds of mix tapes. there is always a reason to make one.

Dr. Freud established that only a small part, perhaps one-tenth, of the human mental and emotional organization is conscious. Our main response to this discovery has been to reject the nine-tenths unconscious more completely and more systematically than ever before. The ghost story makes contact with the submerged nine-tenths.

What we have in this great story, as I have proposed elsewhere, is not merely a report of history but an imagining of history that is analogous to what Shakespeare did with historical figures and events in his history plays.

Come cuddle close in daddy's coat Beside the fire so bright, And hear about the fairy folk That wander in the night.

Mom — the person most likely to write an autobiography and never mention herself.

What if man were required to educate his children without the help of talking animals.

Master programmers think of systems as stories to be told rather than programs to be written.

The key to keeping the audience on the edge of their seats is letting events unfold slowly, then speeding them up at the right moment, according to a pattern and tempo that you control.

I sense that I am dawdling in this narrative, having already reached my eighth roll of Hieratica, and need to speed it up a little, else either I shall die on the job, or you will be worn out reading.

He had learned well from Cicero the tricks of political campaigning: keep your speeches short, remember names, tell jokes, put on a show; above all, render an issue, however complex, into a story anyone can grasp.

narratives are major vectors of rapid change in culture, in zeitgeist, and in economic behavior.

It would be easier if this was a story, he thought. In

What ways are those?" she asked carefully. Did the woman really believe in people five spans tall who sang to trees? There was something about axes, too. Here come the Aelfinn to steal all your bread; here come the Ogier to chop off your head. Light, she had not heard that since Harine was still in leading strings. With their mother rising in the ships, she had been charged with raising Harine along with her own first child.

Bones and rocks are eloquent storytellers, if you know how to listen to them.

9.?Choose heroes: the power of myth

Learning how to tell a powerful story is learning how to show up as the winner you are.

Nothing good about this but it's title. A priggish little yarn. And Hidden Riches is not a story--it's a machine. It creaks. It never made me forget for one instant that it was a story. Hence it isn't a story.

Once upon a time--which, when you come to think of it, is really the only proper way to begin a story--the only way that really smacks of romance and fairyland--

I read a story tonight. It ended unhappily. I was wretched until I had invented a happy ending for it. I shall always end my stories happily. I don't care whether it's "true to life" or not. It's true to life as it should be and that's a better truth than the other.

But you like to cry over stories? Oh, yes, in the middle of them. But I like everything to come right at last. I must have one pathetic scene in it, said Anne thoughtfully. I might let ROBERT RAY be injured in an accident and have a death scene. No, you mustn't kill BOBBY off, declared Diana, laughing. He belongs to me and I want him to live and flourish. Kill somebody else if you have to. For