top of page
.png){kind=small}
Storytelling Quotes
"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
301
"Never trust the storyteller. Only trust the story."
68
"The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good."
64
"Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh."
62
"The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told."
62
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind."
56
"A first-rate story is easily killed by second-rate design."
55
"Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait."
53
"One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory.You must remember this."
52
"Stories close the gap and reconcile between what we want life to be and how it actually is."
51
"You will ask me, after this, why, I didn't tell you this before. It is because I know how powerful a story can be. It can change the course of history. It can save a life. But it can also be a sinkhole, a quicksand in which you become stuck, unable to write yourself free."
51
"A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart."
50
"And I here make a rule-a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting-only the deeply personal and familiar."
50
"The heart of a story gives it life."
49
"Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be."
48
"Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable."
46
"In the story of the prince and the frog, there's always a frog. This story ... it has no frog."
45
"So, when the special effects are at the service of the story and draw you into it, that is really the magic."
44
"No story is worth telling without the twists and turns. Make them count instead."
44
"You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can't get me out of the story. I'm the plot, babe, and don't ever forget it."
43
"Whatever story you want to tell, tell it at the right size."
40
"I am more one for the story, I think, than the action."
40
"The seed of an urban legend find fertile soil at the corner of tragedy and imagination."
39
"So what's your story? Ryan asks.Avery looks up at him, hand still in the water. "My story?"Yeah. Everybody has at least one."
39
"I will tell you a story, one I used to tell to a little boy with dark hair. A silent boy who rarely laughs, who listened more closely than I realized. A boy who had a name and not a title."
38
"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."
37
"By Aladdin's lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth."
37
"If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story."
37
"Wit smiled. "All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names."
36
"When life gives you the gift of a great story, to not partake in the telling of that story would be a crime against humanity."
36
"People don't remember lessons. They remember stories."
36
"And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And I here make a rule - a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familiar."
35
"They weren't true stories, they were better than that."
35
"Postmen have a legendary aura. A ring at the doorbell may inflame a sense of expectation, suspense, secrecy, hazard or even intrigue. Ringing twice may imply a warning that trouble is on the way or an appeal to make the coast clear. Not all mailmen, though, will ring twice and await an eye-catching Lana Turner, whom they can whisper: "With my brains and your looks, we could go places. ['The postman always rings twice']"
34
"If the characters are not wicked, the book is." We must tell stories the way God does, stories in which a sister must float her little brother on a river with nothing but a basket between him and the crocodiles. Stories in which a king is a coward, and a shepherd boy steps forward to face the giant. Stories with fiery serpents and leviathans and sermons in whirlwinds. Stories in which murderers are blinded on donkeys and become heroes. Stories with dens of lions and fiery furnaces and lone prophets laughing at kings and priests and demons. Stories with heads on platters. Stories with courage and crosses and redemption. Stories with resurrections."
34
"Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul."
34
"All stories have a curious and even dangerous power. They are manifestations of truth -- yours and mine. And truth is all at once the most wonderful yet terrifying thing in the world, which makes it nearly impossible to handle. It is such a great responsibility that it's best not to tell a story at all unless you know you can do it right. You must be very careful, or without knowing it you can change the world."
33
"I wondered about the story we were writing and wanted even more to write a better story for myself, something that leaves a beautiful feeling even as the credits roll."
33
"People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn't buy every one."
33
"Storytelling still matters in the digital age, because commencing in adolescences and continuing through adulthood, people receive training in using stories to describe the human contestants, organize the facts, communicate the moral message behind the messy human conflict, evaluate competing ethical issues, and render a final value judgment."
32
"Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey--and returned."
32
"I don't think there is another person in America that wants to tell this story as much as I do."
31
"We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them."
31
"Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults."
31
"Have you thought of an ending?""Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant.""Oh, that won't do! Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?""It will do well, if it ever came to that.""Ah! And where will they live? That's what I often wonder."
30
"But those are just words, and words are just stories, and eventually, always, stories come to an end."
30
"If someone tells you what a story is about, they are probably right.If they tell you that that is all a story is about, they are very definitely wrong."
30
"You'd tell the world what your best friend wore to sleep if you thought it made a good enough story."
30
"Stories are not like the real world, they aren't held back by what we know is false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel inside."
30
"That was what her parents did not understand-and had never understood-about stories. Liza told herself storied as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pull herself out, inch by inch and hand over hand, on the long rope of stories."
29
bottom of page