“The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout.”
“This story is about people, and how they lived; before how and why they died became what defined them.”
“You understand your world through the stories you tell. Change your stories, and you will change your world.”
“History is a story, my grandfather said. I offer a friendly amendment: history is many stories. Those stories are written, spoken, and sung. They are carried in our bodies. They billow all around us like copper-colored dust that sometimes obscures everything. In those stories, we grasp at meaning. We search for ourselves, for our place, for direction. We search for a way forward: a woman warrior, a complication man, an invitation home, a meteor, a lake, a child landing with a splat. Destruction and creation. Changes in light, terrain, and atmosphere. Delicate new freedom. Hope.”
“Pentru a exista, lumea trebuie întâi povestită.”
“We all live in stories, so called grand narratives. Nation is a story. Family is a story. Religion is a story. Community is a story. We all live within and with these narratives. And it seems to me that a definition of any living vibrant society is that you constantly question those stories. That you constantly argue about the stories. In fact the arguing never stops. The argument itself is freedom. It’s not that you come to a conclusion about it. And through that argument you change your mind sometime and that’s how societies grow. When you can t retell for yourself the stories of your life then you live in a prison somebody else controls the story.”
“If the Epic of Gilgamesh carries a teaching, it is that the other makes our existence possible.”
“What the poet tells us is that, after the ordeals and adventures, after the revelation and the loss, the king must do two things: preserve the splendor of his city and tell his own story. Both tasks are complementary: both speak of the intimate connection between building a city of walls and building a story of words, and both require, in order to be accomplished, the existence of the other.”
“Why do I have to tell a story?” I asked. “Because if you don’t tell the story, someone else will tell it for you.”
“Sometimes you ve got a story you need to find the courage to tell.”
“I met you here a few years back. Too young too naive to understand the lows and the highs. We talked everyday and soon you were my best friend. It was instant, Shakespeare kind of tale but the only thing which prevented it from blossoming was the restrictions I had and the distance between us. I told you go ahead and find someone else and soon we were distant as ever. Maybe I broke your heart when I put my walls up against the relationship or maybe I was too young to understand what you wanted. I wanted to give my career a shot. I went away and gave you space ; came back after a few years and found you unrecognizable. You didn t believe a word I said, so distant and oh so cold. But I was happy for you as you had found real love and I accepted that. Then why did you have to blame me for? I never understood and will never do. Maybe that s why young loves are complicated and have a special place in our hearts”
“Time beats with the story s world pages”
“Don t be ashamed of your story up to now. Make peace with it instead. Read it loud and proud. This will not only help start the healing process within, but will also set your soul free to begin to write again.”
“Stories have been essential to human survival since prehistory: at their most base, they are how we communicate both threats and opportunities. They are how the subconscious sorts through problems as we rest; through the narratives that are dreams, we can go on and address life’s travails. Literature refines these functions, elevates them to the spiritual realm.”
“You are one positive change, one new choice, or one unexpected chance away from a different way of life. Hold on tight and don t let go. Rediscover the original story that has been inside you all along.”
“That would be a ghostwriter worth keeping hold of! But my books are relatively short. A GRRM volume is well over twice as long. I think my main asset is that I write things once. I don’t have the draft draft draft disease that some suffer from. I’ve never deleted a page and rewritten it, some authors rewrite whole chapters or remove or add characters. That’s going to make it a lengthy process.”
“A good story is sometimes preferable to an accurate one.”