A tale may have exactly three beginnings: one for the audience, one for the artist, and one for the poor bastard who has to live in it.

Stories,' the green-eyed Sigrid said, unperturbed, 'are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words.

You and I, we're no good at telling a story straight. It won't come off right. Like a dog reciting a sonnet. Impressive, but how much better to let him howl?

Storytelling can save you. Both the telling and the listening.

Any story told is a lie cunningly told to hide the real world from the poor bastards who live in it.

I won't be one of the hundreds telling you that being alive flows like a story you write consciously, deliberately, full of linear narrative, foreshadowing, repetition, motifs. The emotional beats come down where they should, last as long as they should, end where they should, and that should come from somewhere real and natural, not from the tyranny of the theatre, the utter hegemony of fiction.