“We are wearing coats of trust. When one tells a story this is what happens.”
“Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man s life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist s is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood, Yet, what a real living human being is made of seems to be less understood today than at any time before, and men - each one of whom represents a unique and valuable experiment on the part of nature - are therefore shot wholesale nowadays. If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world s phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man s story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.”
“You must never tell people their own stories. They have no interest in them, or they think they can tell them better themselves. Give them a stranger s life, and then they re content.”
“Is there anyone’s life story you don’t want to know?” “Not really.” His expression was unexpectedly serious. “Because people make a story of their lives. Gains, losses, tragedy and triumph—you can tell a lot about someone simply by what they put into each category. You can learn a lot about what you put into each category by your reaction to them. They teach you about yourself without ever intending to do it—and they teach you a lot about life.”
“Hard to accept the end of a story that won the villain against heroes.”
“No doubt you are wondering what you will find, out there. The Commandant said it for me. Well, it would be useless for me to try and tell you. The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it...”
“In life, every ending is just the start of another story.”
“She didn t see him watching as he played, having no idea that Hans Hubermann s accordion was a story. In the times ahead, that story would arrive at 33 Himmel Street in the early hours of morning, wearing ruffled shoulders and a shivering jacket. It would carry a suitcase, a book, and two questions. A story. Story after story. Story within story. ”
“Once upon a time, the Reindeer took a running leap and jumped over the Northern Lights. But he jumped too low, and the long fur of his beautiful flowing tail got singed by the rainbow fires of the aurora. To this day the reindeer has no tail to speak of. But he is too busy pulling the Important Sleigh to notice what is lost. And he certainly doesn’t complain. What s your excuse?”
“Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.”
“For me the thing that signals a great story is what we might call its autonomy, the fact that it detaches itself from its author like a soap bubble blown from a clay pipe.”
“Writing a story, regardless of length, begins always with a single word.”
“Where you read a book and when and with whom can make a big difference.”
“Her body was rounded like earth. Stories. Breath. . . . Her eyes have been painted closed. I understand. To tell a story you must travel inward.”
“The meaning did not precede the dream; the dream preceded the meaning. So the way to read the tale is to let the imagination carry one along. Not, above all, as a rebus to be decoded.”
“I’d like to be remembered as someone who used their ability as a novelist or as a dramatist to say the things he felt needed to be said about the society while being as entertaining as possible. Because if you don’t entertain, nobody’s listening.”
“In our modern age, there are writers who have heaped scorn on the very idea of the primacy of story. I d rather warm my hands on a sunlit ice floe than try to coax fire from the books they carve from glaciers.”