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Storytelling Quotes
"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."
"Old Tom giggled, "Fooled ya, huh, Ma? We aimed to fool ya, and we done it. Jus' stood there like a hammered sheep. Wisht Grampa'd been here to see. Looked like somebody'd beat ya between the eyes with a sledge. Grampa would a whacked 'imself so hard he'd a throwed his hip out"like he done when he seen Al take a shot at that grea' big airship the army got. Tommy, it come over one day, half a mile big, an' Al gets the thirty-thirty and blazes away at her. Grampa yells, 'Don't shoot no fledglin's, Al; wait till a growed-up one goes over,' an' then he whacked 'imself an' throwed his hip out."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"But those are just words, and words are just stories, and eventually, always, stories come to an end."
"Basically all the religions,sciences and powers of the world boil down to a simple truth. The Best Story Teller will win in the end!"
"The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together."
"When I was a child, I pestered my elders for stories."
"What you need to remember is that there's a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not."
"The making of stories is only one part of my craft -mainly, I'm a heart whisperer..."
"All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.All of them?Sure, he says. Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist."
"Experience is the catalyst for all great stories."
"Maybe stories choose how they are told and who tells them."
"We are all the construction of a story and it is only at the end that we can assess the value of the plot. ['Everybody his story']"
"Storytelling answers questions and solves mysteries."
"There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story."
"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."
"At the end of your story, you get down to the purity of it all. It's like distilling something."
"A great story is impossible to forget."
"Storytelling is the distinctly human implement designed to synthesize our purposeful interaction with reality."
"Magician is the best storyteller in the world."
"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."
"Don't the great tales never end?""No, they never end as tales," said Frodo. "But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later or sooner."
"Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait."
"We owe it to each other to tell stories."
"What are these fundamental principles, if they are not atoms?""Stories. And they give me hope."
"The world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."
"Every human being carries with them the stories of their ancestors, the story of their generation, and the rudiments of pliable clay to build future storylines that will shape their community of kindred souls. Storytelling unites us as a species and supplies texture to our lives. By listening to other people's stories and by sharing our personal story, we deftly weave the threads that compose the sacred hoop of the tribe."
"I am a storyteller, not a historian, and it's my ambition to create something compelling - something unputdownable and riveting - that chimes with the real history but is, in fact, fiction."
"A story has value whether it's true or not."
"As the story grew, it put down roots into the past and threw out unexpected branches ."
"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."
"Everyone wanted me to feed them that story-darkness to light, weakness to strength, broken to whole. I wanted it, too."
"I am more one for the story, I think, than the action."
"In the story of the prince and the frog, there's always a frog. This story ... it has no frog."
"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."
"The hand of God is wonderfully evident at those times when He pens stories whose lines we ourselves are far too fearful to pen or whose imaginations are far too limited to envision. And I would unashamedly suggest that the Christmas story is that very story."
"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."
"From the tiniest experience of your daily life to your grand perception of the universe, in various situations, the human brain tends to create its own myth and stories."
"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."
"A first-rate story is easily killed by second-rate design."
"People don't remember lessons. They remember stories."
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind."
"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."
"The heart of a story gives it life."
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