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"A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit."
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!["A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit."](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==)
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"Experience is the catalyst for all great stories."
Author Name
Personal Development
"When I was a child, I pestered my elders for stories."
Author Name
Personal Development
"As I quietly stare off into space, eyes glazed over and brow thoughtfully taut, know that I am going about my business. I am a storyteller. Daydreaming is the best part of my job."
Author Name
Personal Development
"The Marquis sighed. "I thought it was just a legend," he said. "Like the alligators in the sewers of New York City."Old Bailey nodded, sagely: "What, the big white buggers? They're down there. I had a friend lost a head to one of them." A moment of silence. Old Naeiley handed the statue back to the Marquis. Then he raised his hand, and snapped it, like a crocodile hand, at the Carabas. "It was OK," gurned Old Bailey with a grin that was most terrible to behold. "He had another."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I just completed The Tenth Circle. It is an excellent mystery story surrounding a family with modern day issues."
Author Name
Personal Development
"There are only three possible endings -aren't there? - to any story: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness. That's it. All stories end like that."
Author Name
Personal Development
"You begin with other people's stories and end up with your own."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Storytelling entails weaving a narrative out of the disturbing, strange, inspirational, and unremarkable detritus of life. By picking among the litter of our personal experiences to select evocative anecdotes to weave into a narrative format, we reveal which of life's legendary offerings prove the most sublime to us. Acts of omission are momentous. Our narration of personal sketches divulge what factoids inspire us or do not stir us into action, or contain obdurate truths that prove virtually impossible to crack."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Sometimes a book isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Sometimes it's the only story you knew how to tell."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Every object holds a story."
Author Name
Personal Development
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"Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto."
Morality
"On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From the dog owners I learned 'Lie down,' 'Shut up,' and 'Who shit on this carpet?' The couple across the road taught me to ask questions correctly, and the grocer taught me to count. Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window. 'I want me some lamb chop with handles on 'em."
Language
"I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed."
Change
"But instead I am applying for a job as an elf. Even worse than applying is the very real possibility that I will not be hired, that I couldn't even find work as an elf. That's when you know you're a failure."
Failure
"When asked 'What do we need to learn this for?' any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness."
School
"I hoped our lives would continue this way forever, but inevitably the past came knocking. Not the good kind that was collectible but the bad kind that had arthritis."
Reflection
"Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to engage in physical combat. Once, he hit me on the back of the head with a broken wineglass, and I fell to the floor pretending to be unconscious. That was romantic, or would have been had he rushed to my side rather than stepping over my body to fetch the dustpan."
Romance
"Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the understanding that, like Mom used to say, sooner or later something's gonna get you."
Personal
"Mr. Mancini had a singular talent for making me uncomfortable. He forced me to consider things I'd rather not think about " the sex of my guitar, for instance. If I honestly wanted to put my hands on a woman, would that automatically mean I could play? Gretchen's teacher never told her to think of her piano as a boy. Neither did Lisa's flute teacher, though in that case the analogy was obvious. On the off chance that sexual desire was all it took, I steered clear of Lisa's instrument, fearing that I might be labeled a prodigy."
Satire
"On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf's lot to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind."
Humor
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