Quotes About Story

What the novelist is doing, though, is not causing readers to feel as the novelist does, or as his characters do, but rather inducing for each reader a unique emotional journey through a story.

His characters may be cardboard, but each has a clear, uncomplicated purpose. Every moment of the story contributes to building conflict.

How many have left a permanent mark, branding you with a story that you will never forget?

A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.

It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything.

Fear isn't only a guide to keep us safe; it's also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life … the great stories go to those who don't give in to fear.

I've wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don't want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment. We don't want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn't remarkable, then we don't have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims instead of grateful participants.

I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it means to be a tree in that story.

He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn't provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn't mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she'd chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence.

He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.

I no longer believe love works like a fairy tale but like farming. Most of it is just getting up early and tilling the soil and then praying for rain. But if we do the work, we just might wake up one day to find an endless field of crops rolling into the horizon. In my opinion, that's even better than a miracle. I'd rather earn the money than win the lottery because there's no joy in a reward unless it comes at the end of a story.

Job found contentment and even joy, outside the context of comfort, health or stability. He understood the story was not about him, and he cared more about the story then he did about himself.

the times we worked harder to make the day stand out. our story demanded that we change and so we did.

If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.

When one of my friends becomes a Christian, which happens about every 10 years because I am a sheep about sharing my faith, the experience is euphoric. I see in their eyes the trueness of the story.

So I wrote. I wrote as though God thought my voice mattered. I wrote because I believed a human story was beautiful, no matter how small the human was. I wrote because I didn't make myself, God did. And I wrote like he'd invited me to share my true "self" with the world.

But the people who took the bus didn't experience the city as we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way.

A good story makes you thankful to be alive because it reminds you that while sometimes painful, life is indeed beautiful and even magical.

The heart responds to the conflict within a story.

It's interesting that in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a job you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God. It's as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help.

In every line of copy we write, we're either serving the customer's story or descending into confusion; we're either making music or making noise.

We were made to be distracted by life, by story.

I was a tree in a story about a forest, the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree

God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me specifically into the story, and He put us in specifically with the sunsets in the rainstorms as though to say, Enjoy your place in My story, the very beauty of it means it's not about you, and in time that will give you comfort.