Stories Quotes - Page 63

The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she - the author - should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary.

There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was 'the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.'

When you're operating on uninvestigated theories of what's going on and you aren't even aware of it, you're in what I call "the dream." Often the dream becomes troubling; sometimes it even turns into a nightmare. At times like these, you may want to test the truth of your theories by doing The Work on them. The Work always leaves you with less of your uncomfortable story. Who would you be without it? How much of your world is made up of unexamined stories? You'll never know until you inquire.

All societies have these cases. There are many, many crime cases that remain famous from the times of the Romans. The Bible is full of crime stories. You can almost flip to a page. Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers is a crime story. The Bible is full of crime stories.

People who understand everything get no stories.

Writers who can't invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn't paint people, so he painted chairs.

The story of America is necessarily one of progress because if it's not than it's a stale story where we have not risen above Klansmen.

The story of my billion-dollar business starts like this. I borrowed $1,000 from a friend.

We may come from different places and have different stories, but we share common hopes, and one very American dream.

Life takes its own turns, makes its own demands, writes its own story, and along the way, we start to realize we are not the author.

It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do.

The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.

Debauchery conceived of as a kind of ascetic experience is not new, either for men or for women, but until Story of O no woman to my knowledge had said it.

It’s more than just saying lines and turning the light on. You have to drive the story - there’s a technical aspect.

A strong theme is always running through a well-told story.

Change is fundamental in story. If things go static, stories die.

I've always known when I start a story what the last line is. It's always been the case, since the first story I ever wrote. I don't know how it's going to get there, but I seem to need the destination. I need to know where I end up. It never changes, ever.

From earliest times, humans - explorers and thinkers - have wanted to figure out the shape of their world. Forever, the way we've done that is through storytelling. It is difficult to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I love stories that put you on the edge of your seat and make you feel something.

My short stories have always pushed twenty pages. That's no length for a short story to be. You either do them short like Carver or you stop trying.

As Razam so aptly demonstrates, a new kind of traveler is emerging-one that embarks into the mysterious and uncharted domain within, where they aim to conquer their own hearts. Written in the tradition of a great adventure narrative, Aya Awakenings is a timely story for a new emerging era.

I long To hear the story of your life, which must Take the ear strangely.

If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in his tomorrow, I have not labored in vain.

The experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. That is a remarkable thing, if you scream and everyone else in the audience screams, you realize that your fears are not just within yourself, they're in other people as well, and that's strangely releasing.

Ghost stories really scare me. I have such a big imagination that after I watch a horror movie like 'The Grudge', I look in the corners of my room for the next two days.