1,265 Quotes About Storytelling

Publishers, readers, booksellers, even critics, acclaim the novel that one can deliciously sink into, forget oneself in, the novel that returns us to the innocence of childhood or the dream of the cartoon, the novel of a thousand confections and no unwanted significance. What becomes harder to find, and lonelier to defend, is the idea of the novel as—in Ford Madox Ford’s words—a “medium of profoundly serious investigation into the human case.

A story is inside of us all. Each word and sentence is alive and we grace the pages to keep it from dying.

But she always kept on until the end. She knew, as i knew, that you don't stop a story half done. You keep on going, through heartbreak and pain and fear, and times there is a happy ending, and times there isn't. Don't matter. You don't cut a flower half through and then wait and watch as it slowly shrivels to death. And you don't stop a story before you reach the end. - A Creature of Moonlight

Erzählen, das bedeutet einen Bogen spannen, wo zunächst keiner ist, den Entwicklungen Struktur und Folgerichtigkeit gerade dort verleihen, wo die Wirklichkeit nichts davon bietet.

U nekom trenutku sve priče postaju iste, kaže pripovedač, i sve vode do istog cilja. Veština je u tome, kaže pripovedač, da se onaj koj sluša ili čita priču navede na pomisao da je priča koju upravo sluša ili čita ipak drugačija od ostalih. Pripovedanje je, dakle, zavaravanje, kaže pripovedač, priča je, znači, laž. (Pripovedanje i priča)

Il y a bien longtemps, Tigre possédait les histoires. [...] Dans les histoires de Tigre, tout ce qui compte c'est la puissance des crocs, la manière dont on chasse et celle dont on tue. Il n'y a pas de douceur dans les histoires de Tigre, pas de ruse, et pas de paix.

Everything I do in its essence is about helplessness. That's the story I want to tell all the time. It's the story I wanted to live - somebody who appears to be, or is, weak becoming stronger.

Stories have a job to do. They can't just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something.

Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we're all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.