Stories Quotes

The effect produced by a short story depends almost entirely on its form.

Of course the success of A Boy's Own Story took me utterly off guard.

My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.

I think the deepest thing is that many fiction writers tell stories but are not elegant writers. But, we're not writing journalism when we're making literature.

I'm happy to be part of this chorus of people who are trying to tell more complex stories about Haiti.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

I like to tell stories through dancing and singing.

When you're making a television show, it's about the story and arc of the show rather than any particular episode or director.

I think you should make movies as long as the story dictates.

I always wanted to tell stories and act.

I love to tell stories and this is my way of getting them down on paper.

All of these stories bounced around in my mind for a long time.

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.

I believe in the story [ of Adam and Eve]. For me, it's a story.

The only way for us to help ourselves is to help others and to listen to each other's stories.

Whether every story that's there [in the Bible] is a historic truth ... Again, I'm not concerned.

The story [of the Sacrifice of Isaac ] is much more a part of theology than of history.

The story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac are nowhere in any other tradition.

We've sort of agreed that the account of Adam and Eve is a story.

The stories in Dawn Raffel's astonishing Further Adventures in the Restless Universe as as sharp and bright as stars.

I feel like there's more of a need to tell more optimistic stories.

I love stories about misfits and underdogs.

You can just say the word "hair" to a woman, and she tells you the story of her life.

Story involves action. Action towards an end not to be foreseen (by the reader) but also towards an end which, having been reached, must be seen to have been from the start inevitable.

[My early stories] are the work of a living writer whom I know in a sense, but can never meet.

Part of what I want to do is sort of reclaim my story - it belongs to me and to my children, who have to live with whoever their mother is.

Felipe and I, as we discover to our delight, are a perfectly matched, genetically engineered belly-to-belly success story.

The reality, certainly in my life, is that we all have love stories that go terribly wrong; we all have horribly broken hearts. And somehow we endure. We're not destroyed by it.

I think it's important to recognise that 'The Da Vinci Code' opened up a vast new audience for a general readership interested in historical detective stories and research into history.

Poignant, earthy, intensely human, Letters From A Stranger is a love story that is as unusual and courageous as its characters.

All these lives," she said. "All the stories we never know." (125)

I have to pay attention to what I have felt and observed, then push these responses to an extreme while keeping the story within the realm of being psychologically and emotionally true.

Holly Black is the Real Thing: a gifted writer with a solid grounding in what matters. Her stories are dark and splendid blooms rising from roots sunk deep in myth and tradition.

I always let the characters guide the stories. They really let me know what they want to say and what action they want to happen.

The story of the Jews in the Bible is replete with incidents of their ingratitude to God for His gifts to them: incidents that just as repeatedly merit and receive punishment.

We like to look out on the world and see ourselves, so we have many, many novels, memoirs, and short stories in Iraq that are largely about Americans in Iraq, doing what Americans do.

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story.

Until I can visualise what the lyrics are about and see the story or whatever, I can't hear the melody.

My personal feeling is that audiences are crying out for stories they can invest in and feel. I see a lot of big movies that leave me feeling rather numb.

What's wonderful about Into The Woods is that you have a combination of all the most famous fairytales in this one story.

Every couple has two stories - the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version best left alone.

I try to be true to the characters that I've created and sometimes I disagree with them, but their opinions about the story and the characters really matter to me.

I've always loved sister stories in fiction, from the time I was little, reading about Beezus and Ramona. I've always wanted to write a sister story.

I'm not trying to convey a message, I'm just trying to tell a story.

In my stories, I think, as I've gotten older, the characters have become stronger and more independent, and more capable of making unconventional decisions.

I love really, really deep, dark-as-Russia storylines. I love supernatural aspects. I grew up with ghost stories.

I've been in a long and happy relationship for 22 years and it's never inspired me to write anything. It's too good - nothing to say. Problems, conflict, that's what makes for good stories.

When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you.

This is a bad story.” “Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” “No, you should,” I say. “But—” “I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.

I love the idea of getting to play different characters and tell some stories. When you're passionate about a project, it's nice to get the part.