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"For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories."
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"For me, that emotional payoff is what it's all about. I want you to laugh or cry when you read a story...or do both at the same time. I want your heart, in other words. If you want to learn something, go to school."
"The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To keep to one version or one translation alone is to put robin redbreast in a cage."
"Iff replied that the Plentimaw Fishes were what he called 'hunger artists' - 'Because when they are hungry they swallow stories through every mouth, and in their innards miracles occur; a little bit of one story joins on to an idea from another, and hey presto, when they spew the stories out they are not the old tales but new ones. Nothing comes from nothing, Thieflet; no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old - it is the new combinations that make them new."
"What so tedious as a twice-told tale?"
"A great story is impossible to forget."
"The making of stories is only one part of my craft -mainly, I'm a heart whisperer..."
"A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important."
"A serious adult story must be true to something in life. Since marvel tales cannot be true to the events of life, they must shift their emphasis towards something to which they can be true; namely, certain wistful or restless moods of the human spirit, wherein it seeks to weave gossamer ladders of escape from the galling tyranny of time, space, and natural law."
"Socially interacting with a storyteller can be a frustrating challenge because a portion of her awareness is constantly sorting through the details of a developing book. And while you may successfully engage in a meaningful conversation with her, an additional part of her mind is frantically sifting through descriptive lines to be used if ever she were to write this exchange down. The trouble with writers is that they are ALWAYS writing!"
"If you want to know someone's story, they have to tell it aloud. But every time, the telling is a little but different. It's new, even to me."
Explore more quotes by Tahir Shah
"A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation."
"Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realised later that, in the East, a commitment to produce does not automatically accompany employment."
"Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster."
"For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure."
"In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough."
"As the man was bundled into an armoured police van, he turned and shouted: 'Don't waste your life following others! Be individual! Live your dreams!'I stood there thinking. He was right. Ours is a society of followers, trapped by an island mentality."
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