“Don’t judge me. You’re not living my life and you know nothing about my battles. You have not the faintest idea of how I manage to smile in the middle of storms or how I transform my despair into delight. You have not the faintest idea of what I have gone through and why I am who I am today. This is my life and only I know the real story. The strains, the struggles, the sorrows are all mine. They’re not for you to assess or evaluate; I give that authority to none, for My Guiding Light is Within. - Manprit Kaur”
“When you know how, it s a pleasure to burn.”
“A thrilling story can be dull if told badly, but even the most mundane event can be elevated into a tale of epic scale by a good storyteller.”
“I m not much of a believer in the so-called character story; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss.”
“I m not much of a believer in the so-called character study; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss.”
“As a screenwriter - if you are completely honest with yourself - you can’t help but admit that your greatest threat is the audience, where audience is not understood as a demographic category but as a character outside the script to whom the story is addressed. A good part of the drama necessary for uncovering the story resides in the conflict between the storyteller and his/her audience. Audience plays the part of antagonist to the writer’s role as protagonist. The writer drives the action, which is forever complicated, frustrated and undermined by the audience’s needs and sensibilities. Audience wants you to prove it. Audience has a chip on its shoulder, and doesn’t give a damn. Audience has been there and done that in the guise of your mother, your father, your ex-, your worst enemy. Audience laughs at your stupidity and dares you to change its view of you and the story world that you would have it care about. Audience is defiant. It has your number. The only way you can defeat it is by carrying a bigger stick - your only defence is an inspired offence, namely the story.”
“When will you be brave enough to recognize your success story?”
“Life is an intricate play with actors waiting for an explanation. Each added act confers a new interpretation of the story. ( Waiting for the pieces to fall into place )”
“The power of your story may not lie in its drama, but in its absolutely perfect relationship to your cause.”
“You can t write a sory until you ve felt. Breathe it in. Walked with your characters. Talked with them. That s why you come here. To live your story.”
“Here is a story in the worst way. I have no business being anywhere in it. It comes between me and the life I have coming.”
“Confrontation affords you the opportunity to hear the other side of the story.”
“The bigger the dream, the better the story.”
“A good book ought to have something simple about it. And, like Eve, it ought to come from somewhere near the third rib: there ought to be a heart beating in it. A story that s all forehead doesn t amount to much.”
“Too many film schools, as well as any number of screenwriting gurus and an obscene number of how-to-write tomes, have made a business of catering to fledgling screenwriters and filmmakers by exploiting their belief that the only thing standing between them and an Oscar is the right kind of knowledge. If only one knew enough, one could easily become rich and famous. Unfortunately, almost all are susceptible to that eternal malady – “that last great infirmity of the soul” – which is FAME. And whilst I don’t deny the value of technical knowledge, such knowledge matters very little if the story one is trying to tell doesn’t matter, either because it’s incoherent or simply because it fails to make us care.”
“The space between the private and the public is the nexus of the personal and the social, if not political. It’s where we meet the strong or subtle cultural censors who attempt to define what community, race, class, or gender can or cannot speak, to tell us which stories are told and valued and which are not. In short, it’s where we’re reminded of the power of personal stories and the power of the storyteller.”
“The ordinary stories of our ordinary lives have extraordinary gifts coded within them. . .”