Best 6566 quotes in «stories quotes» category

The tales are only as dark as the teller.

The tatters of old stories are tangled, weathered, muted by long-held silences that succeeded loud feuds, and sometimes no doubt re-dyed a more flattering color.

The task of calling things by their true names, of telling the truth to the best of our abilities, of knowing how we got here, of listening particularly to those who have been silenced in the past, of seeing how the myriad stories fit together and break apart, of using any privilege we may have been handed to undo privilege or expand its scope is each of our tasks. It's how we make the world.

The telling and the hearing of a story is not a simple act. The one who tells must reach down into deeper layers of the self, reviving old feelings, reviewing the past. Whatever is retrieved is reworked into a new form, one that narrates events and gives the listener a path through these events that leads to some fragment of wisdom. The one who hears takes the story in, even to a place not visible or conscious to the mind, yet there. In this inner place a story from another life suffers a subtle change. As it enters the memory of the listener it is augmented by reflection, by other memories, and even the body hearing and responding in the moment of the telling. By such transmissions, consciousness is woven.

The telling and hearing of stories is a bonding ritual that breaks through illusions of separateness and activates a deep sense of our collective interdependence.

The things of this world are vessels, entrances for stories; when we touch them or tumble into them, we fall into their labyrinthine resonances. -Lynda Sexson

The trouble with a lecture is that it answers questions that haven't been asked.

The truth is everything.

The versions of these stories that most people tell are indeed cute and sweet and incredibly, mind-numbingly, want-to-hit-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-sledgehammer-ingly-boring.

The way the words say what I mean, how they twist and turn language, how they connect with people. How they build community.

The will to truth is enshrined in the mind. It is undeniable, inescapable, mutable only if one’s humanity itself is rejected, itself muted. Yet the form of this truth, whether it be elaborate, simple, exclusive and regulatory or comprehensive and positive… this is a matter of aesthetics, taste... ...It is all inherently meaningless, the puzzle just as much as the pieces themselves, ephemeral. Yet more than this it is concrete, eternal, heavy and inescapable, a preponderous amalgam of things small and large, the actuality of which is imminent, the meaning of which is too great to acknowledge, let alone comprehend. So we tell stories. We read stories, write them, consider them and like them, or not. Simply ways, simple ways, to limit the All to that which can be understood.

The word "myth" can be most appropriately and simply defined as a story intended to convey some kind of timeless, sacred truth. Why use a story, instead of some other means, to convey what are perceived to be timeless, sacred truths? Stories engage more - and arguably deeper - parts of ourselves than bare, conceptual discourse usually does. They're more entertaining, and they can be more emotionally moving. They're not necessarily irrational - especially when one understands the basic assumptions of the worldview out of which they spring - but they are generally nonrational. They don't necessarily contradict a particular rational understanding of the world, but they're not concerned with the rational validity or lack thereof in what they purport to describe. They bypass reason altogether, for better or for worse. Rather than stating an idea and then arguing for why that is an accurate reflection of reality, stories go straight to the example, depicting the cosmos as seen through the lens of the idea. They show rather than tell. These factors make stories more persuasive than rational argument, for most people and as a general rule, which is most if not all societies have entrusted their core beliefs to myth more often than to rational argument.

The world is a woven basket. Every stitch counts.

The written word is greatest sacred documentation.

The written word is the greatest sacred documentation.

Think like magician, present like magician and perform like magician.

Think of all the stories you've heard, Bast. You have a young boy, the hero. His parents are killed he sets out for vengeance. What next?" Bast hesitated, his expression puzzled. Chronicler answered the question instead. "He finds help. A clever talking squirrel. An old drunken swordsman. A mad hermit in the woods. That sort of thing." Kvothe nodded. "Exactly! He finds the mad hermit in the woods, proves himself worthy, and learns the names of all things, just like Taborlin the Great. Then with these powerful magics at his beck and call, what does he do?" Chronicler shrugged. "He finds the villains and kills them." "Of course," Kvothe said grandly. "Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That's why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.

The worst stories usually make you think: 'but nobody had to die'. These are called true stories.

This is the problem with stories. Stories always mean something. The question is ... What exactly do they mean?

This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full of ocean. Some people say when we are born we’re born into stories. I say we’re also born from stories.

This got me thinking about endings and how the final moments of a story can color our entire perception of a narrative. But endings aren't the epitome of a story; they are just how it stops. The real story is the middle: the ups and downs, the lefts and rights. There are so many directions a story can go, and it's that meaty middle that gives us insight in what is truly going on.

This love is hard core. Let's make it soft porn.

This story is going to be told. I can’t stop it. Neither can you. But what I can do, what I have the power to do, is to ask you if you’ll let me tell it the way you want it told. If you’ll let me tell the truth.

This story, with the magic and the fire swords and the crouching woman and the planet-sized ship—it was happening right now.

This story is always yours for the telling. This has always been yours. You can expand to fill it all or take up the smallest corner. You can write in invisible ink. You can tell your story in red wine stains and spilled ink and bite marks. You can only write in pencil so it can always be erased. You can write in layers, and turn the page and write sideways. You can spin spiral and make your words dance. You can ink it on the surface of your skin or x-ray vision the story onto the blank canvas of your bones. You can write a novel and then let the whole thing dissolve in the waves. You can write the truth and bury it in the ground, throw it in the fire, fold it into paper airplanes and watch it fly, roll it into a note in a bottle and toss it in the ocean and let it find its own way home. Or, you share it with the whole fucking world. You can care and not care and care-not-care all at once. But you get to write. And you get to choose the story you tell. And there’s no freedom bigger or bolder or braver than that.

To have one book published is an achievement somewhat similar to have climbed a mountain, but after a while it seems as though you are walking the street with only one shoe on your feet. To have two books published balances your step and the thought of stopping with that one satisfies your ambition, unless the unsatiable desire to tell stories is too strong to stop, until--but is there ever an until?

Those stories tended to be located around the places where things went wrong, and people were cruel to one another, and so on. They reflected what was probably the most urgent truth operating in me at that time: oh, shit, things can go wrong, and if they do, people get hurt, and I might be one of them, in spite of the fact that I am, you know, me.

Thus far, the only people who can grant you immortality are not scientists, but writers. By writing you into their books, they may not only immortalize you, but also grant you superpowers.

Time is all messed up... Forevers are seconds. Words come too soon or too late. Some stories last forever, others seem to come only yesterday… or tomorrow. Strange, isn’t it? Time has gone mad.

To animals they were just the weather, just part of everything. But humans arose and gave them names, just as people filled the starry sky with heroes and monsters, because this turned them into stories. And humans loved stories, because once you'd turned things into stories, you could change the stories.

To find strength to endure any situation, read stories.

To live, fiction must be read, and to be read it must be enjoyed. Why do so many people talk about the number of times they’ve lost interest in a book after a couple of chapters, or only “toughed it out” to the end out of a sense of obligation? I’d say it’s because too many writers have forgotten that the writer’s job isn’t merely to express himself, it’s to reach a reader. That doesn’t mean pandering to the lowest common denominator. But it does mean that even a work of smart, thoughtful fiction should strive to engage and entertain. If you’re a writer of literary fiction and all you’re bringing to the party is a poetic turn of phrase or a deep thought, that’s not enough. What about pace? Humour? Characters you care about and a smattering of suspense that makes you want to “find out what happens next?” All of these, plus rich language, bracing honesty and emotional resonance, should be components of the best, most thoughtful fiction. Because that’s the sort of reading experience that readers should be able to expect from a novel that demands hours of their time.

To maintain your honesty , one must know to keep alive the spirit of chidhood

Tonight is the night of telling our stories. You tell three and I four.

To tell a ghost story means being willing to be haunted.

Toy is talking and this is why I love her. She can go on about herself ceaselessly and like the scratching of a branch against the window at night, the steady insistence of it is comforting. She has stories without beginnings, stories that trail off, stories that crisscross and contradict and dead end. Toy is the star of her stories. Events orbit her like a constellation.

Those who are coming from the gutters know that from time to time a piece of us will break off and float back to the floor from whence it came. Wealth can gray your eyes at the edges, money does not make you hover above human qualities, you are only a flawed being with much material gain.

Those who perpetrate stories must act cruelly.

Three rules to obey! 1. Don't be over-impressed by your past glories! 2. Don't be scared by your future stories! 3. Be hopeful to get out of today's miseries!

To call up modern versions of the old stories, one has to go forth and live life. As a result then, one will have the challenge of not only living the story, taking it all in, but also interpreting it in whatever ways are useful. So too, one will reap the reward of telling all about it afterward. One's interest in the world, and in having experiences, is really an interest in hearing, having, living one more story, and then one more, then one more story, till one cannot live them out loud any longer. Perhaps it should be said that the drive to live out stories is as deep in the psyche, when awakened, as it is compelling to the psyche to listen to stories and learn from them. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. in Introduction to the 2004 edition of The hero with a thousand faces (J.Campbell)

Today, it was Thalia’s turn to tell the story. And this time, it was going to have a happy ending. She knew this for a fact, because she had written it herself.

To imagine is to spark beauty in our thoughts.

To my words: There was once a wall between us. Now we walk together and greet the world.

To tell stories of the past to children who walk into the future is a task both noble and taxing.

Truth is not a stereotype.

Turn those deep feelings and obsessions of your heart into captivating pieces of literature.

Until you begin to write, then you will see the beauty of writing.

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)

Upon reading, great stories by Great Spirits, the glorious inspiration penetrated our soul; we can’t help but to shed tears. It was a soul soothing and a deep spiritual awaken.

Usually, but not always, a story is told mostly for the benefit of the teller. The story (...) demonstrates how the teller has lived a life full of adventure, of meaning; that they're comical, self-deprecating, and brave; that they're ultimately a person worth knowing. It's as though folks need to remind themselves of their own worth, and they do this by telling and retelling their favourite eleven or twelve stories, the anecdotes that fundamentally define who they are.