"Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals."

Narrative, Story, Identity, Culture, Meaning

32

Create Your Own Wallpaper

Standard

Customized

"Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals."

Exlpore more Narrative quotes

"The best historical stories capture the modern imagination because they are, in many senses, still current - part of a continuum."

Sara Sheridan, Scottish Author

Narrative, History, Story, Relevance, Lesson

"I'd prefer her story than history."

Toba Beta, Indonesian Author

Narrative, Story, Truth, Power, Wisdom

"Life is a book. We are writing the stories of our lives."

Lailah Gifty Akita, Ghanaian Author

Narrative, Stories, Write, Book, Life

"When you're telling a story, you're trying to connect to people in a particular way The way in which you guys have inhabited this world, this universe, has made you part of it, part of the story. You are living in Firefly. When I see you guys, I don't think the show is off the air. I don't think there's a show; I think that's what the world is like. The story is our lives."

Joss Whedon, American Writer

Narrative, Storytelling, Connection, Community, Imagination

"Understand and challenge your personal narrative. Narratives become choices and actions - which become your life."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

Narrative, Truth, Wisdom, Power, Inspirational

"The pattern of the narrative never of necessity wants to end, it never has to."

Robert Creeley, American Poet

Narrative, End, Necessity

"The scenario where the sprawling anti-hero gets his comeuppance and the champion walks off into the sunset with his arm around the prize, usually a woman, is a pleasing one. This media personification of what a hero is all about used to be the common norm. Examining past events can confirm this convoluted outlook that sees the baddie being portrayed as some sort of evil manifestation sent to cause havoc by any means possible."

Stephen Richards, British Author

Narrative, Hero, Media, Good, Evil

"Write about us, Robinson urged. "Tell our story. And I did it; I told our story. You hold it in your hands."

James Patterson, American Author

Narrative, Story, Memory, Writing, Life

"Our lives follow the stories we tell ourselves."

Gina Greenlee, American Author

Narrative, Identity, Belief, Direction

"We only have one life, but we can choose what kind of story it's going to be."

Rick Riordan, American Novelist

Narrative, Life, Choice, Truth, Wisdom

Explore more quotes by Yann Martel

"Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?"

Literature

"Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science."

Scientists

"Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?"

Philosophy

"Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body."

Body

"Trees were not hard, irritable things, but discreetly orgasmic beings moaning at a level too deep for our brutish ears. And flowers were quick explosive orgasms, like making love in the shower."

Nature

"I suppose in the end the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye."

Farewell

"If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

Philosophy

"Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey."

Redemption

"My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean."

Emotion

"Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. They prove to be the ones most faithful to them—it is a fact commonly known in the trade."

Nature