A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of, I could say the world, but it’s actually a being. ‚Harry Potter“s a good example. So Harry’s the hero, right. But he’s tainted with evil. There’s a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It’s well balanced.
Jordan PetersonIf you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!
Mr. TThe duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.
AristotleFor me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.
Taylor SwiftIf you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.
Groucho MarxYou can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.
Taylor SwiftFiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
Ralph Waldo EmersonI’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘
Jim CarreyWrite in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.
Ho Chi MinhStories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.
Paul AusterPeople have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.
Jordan PetersonIt is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.
James Baldwin‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘
C. S. LewisThe kind of fiction I’m trying to write is about telling the truth.
Paul AusterBe amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.
Benjamin DisraeliStage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less.
Clint EastwoodPeople are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice… they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get.
Anthony BourdainFiction is not necessarily about what you know, it’s about how you feel. That is the truth about fiction, and the other truth is that all science is a tool, and we use our tools not to actualise what we know, but to implement how we feel.
Margaret AtwoodI love a natural look in pictures.
Marilyn MonroePeople ask me if there are going to be stories of Harry Potter as an adult. Frankly, if I wanted to, I could keep writing stories until Harry is a senior citizen, but I don’t know how many people would actually want to read about a 65 year old Harry still at Hogwarts playing bingo with Ron and Hermione.
J. K. RowlingGreen Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn’t eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower!
Jim CarreyDigital technology allows us a much larger scope to tell stories that were pretty much the grounds of the literary media.
George LucasFable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.
Gilbert K. ChestertonJournalism keeps you planted in the earth.
Ray BradburyThere are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.
Blaise PascalPeople may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.
Steven WrightI’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.
Matthew McConaugheyThe Joker that Christopher Nolan created in ‚The Dark Knight‘ had the scar across his mouth, and the first time you heard his explanation for it, he makes you believe that’s how he got it. But then you get into the film, and every time he talks about his scar, it’s a totally different story.
The WeekndI love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.
Kevin HartMy shows are not narratives.
Brian EnoThere are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.
Thomas SowellStorytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don’t go there to swim, then those young people don’t have to find out by trial and error.
Margaret AtwoodAll cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.
Walt DisneySome of the stories I admire seem to zero in on one particular time and place. There isn’t a rule about this. But there’s a tidy sense about many stories I read. In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.
Alice MunroWhen I meet people who say – which they do all of the time – ‚I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,‘ and so forth, I switch off quite early.
Christopher HitchensThere can be no better grounding for a lifetime as an author than to see humanity in all its various guises through the lens of the reporter for the town.
Terry PratchettWhy shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Mark TwainGeorge Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I’m 100 percent fiction writer… I don’t want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don’t state my political messages to anybody.
Haruki MurakamiWith action films, it’s great if it’s not just driven by action, but by a good story and interesting characters, as well. Though, there’s nothin‘ like kicking butt!
Dwayne JohnsonIt is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
AristotleA reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.
Margaret AtwoodAs I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.
Nipsey HussleWhen you make a TV show, they always say you’re a guest in someone’s home. Online, you’re a guest in someone’s face. So that’s why I try to make it sound and look and feel very inviting and attractive, because I know that I’m in your face.
Jerry SeinfeldTo take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That’s what Norman Mailer did. That’s what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that’s what I do – that’s what I mean to do.
Maya AngelouI spend just as much time on how people hear my music as I do the actual music, no matter how long it takes. I’m such a visual artist as well that it always goes hand-in-hand.
The WeekndIn the normal flow of a conversation, our attention is divided. We hear parts of what other people are saying, in order to follow and keep the conversation going. At the same time, we’re planning what we’ll say next, some exciting story of our own.
Robert GreeneMy passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work rather than just a 16-bar verse.
Kendrick LamarI am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we’re raised as little girls to think that we’re a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.
Taylor SwiftThe instrument that I never learned how to play was my fans. You know, they are the part of the story that nobody teaches you. I just want to do the right thing; I want to be a voice with them, among them.
Lady GagaIt is one thing to record an album but it’s a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.
RihannaI’m sticking to the script, I’m putting that organic feeling back in the game.
Kendrick LamarAs a writer, as a creator, I’m giving you my experiences. But just take what I give you. You ain’t got to pry beyond that.
Frank OceanI have always enjoyed watching my songs make people cry.
AuroraIn a novel you have to resist the urge to tell everything.
J. K. RowlingI like telling stories, and I tell stories that interest me. It would be boring to have to go to nothing but the best restaurants. That would be a misery to me.
Anthony BourdainI’m a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don’t agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.
Anthony BourdainI never start out with any kind of connecting theme or plan. Everything just falls the way it falls. I don’t ever think about what kind of fiction I write or what I am writing about or what I am trying to write about. When I’m writing, what I do is I think about a story that I want to tell.
Alice MunroI never saw any of my dad’s stories. My mother said he had piles and piles of manuscripts.
Stephen KingI really haven’t had that exciting of a life. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life. So I pretty much like to make it up. I’d rather tell a story about somebody else.
Kurt CobainWhen you’re singing you can hear the echo of people in the audience singing every single word with you, and that was that big dream that I had for myself. It’s happening.
Taylor Swift