3,930 Quotes About Stories

Perspective is the key to everything.

That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.

Life and stories are alike in one way: They are full of hollows. The king and queen have no children: They have a child hollow. The girl has a wicked stepmother: She has a mother hollow. In a story, a baby comes along to fill the child hollow. But in life, the hollows continue empty.

Rewriting the narrative so as to make my life what I want it to be is the stuff of fiction penned by the hands of fools who have yet to realize that truth writes stories bigger than any eraser fiction can conjure up.

Story ideas are the dreams of our waking minds

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.All of them?Sure, he says. Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist.

You are the master over someone who has told you his story.

We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.