If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.
Groucho MarxPeople think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It’s a story.
Billie EilishAll of my songs are autobiographical.
Taylor SwiftIn my father’s generation, the product was 80 percent of what you were putting into the world, and your personal life was 20 percent. It now seems that 80 percent of the product I put out is silly, made-up stories and what I’m wearing.
Angelina JoliePeople want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.
Stephen KingI was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.
Alice MunroIt is all fiction, only autobiographical in the sense it is about a small town. None of the incidents in the book ever happened to me as a child. I didn’t have an eventful childhood.
Harper LeeTruth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
Francis BaconIt 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 BaldwinWhen I write, the story is always uppermost in my mind, and I feel that everything must be sacrificed to it. All elegant passages, all the curious details, all the so-called beautiful writing – if they are not truly relevant to what I am trying to say, then they have to go.
Paul AusterI wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.
Steven WrightThe 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 GagaI could hardly sit through ‚Frozen.‘ There was an attempt to craft a moral message and to build the story around that, instead of building the story and letting the moral message emerge. It was the subjugation of art to propaganda, in my estimation.
Jordan PetersonYou know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That’s what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.
Steven WrightA 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 PetersonI think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.
Ray BradburyStorytelling 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 AtwoodThe book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.
Jeff BezosI’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.
Anthony BourdainI’m not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.
Margaret AtwoodStorytelling is about two things; it’s about character and plot.
George LucasOf course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.
Margaret ThatcherA myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.
Alan WattsI don’t listen to a lot of new stuff. I just like the old stuff. It’s all quite dramatic and atmospheric. You’d have an entire story in song. I never listen to, like, white music – I couldn’t sing you a Zeppelin or Floyd song.
Amy WinehouseIt’s all make believe, isn’t it?
Marilyn MonroeAs human beings, we are all not conducting just one narrative but many narratives all at the same time.
David HareIf I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name.
Kendrick LamarI’ve often made revisions at that stage that turned out to be mistakes because I wasn’t really in the rhythm of the story anymore. I see a little bit of writing that doesn’t seem to be doing as much work as it should be doing, and right at the end, I will sort of rev it up. But when I finally read the story again, it seems a bit obtrusive.
Alice MunroI’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 BourdainAll my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.
Ray BradburyIn fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is.
Taylor SwiftThe kind of fiction I’m trying to write is about telling the truth.
Paul AusterI love stories about women.
Clint EastwoodI 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 BourdainThese are all personal crises, I’m sure, that I manifest in a song format and project into physical situations. You make little stories up about how you feel. It’s as simple as that.
David BowieI don’t write material. Funny things happen to me in the course of a day, and I just make notes.
Kevin HartWhen you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.
The WeekndI 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 MunroWe grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.
Paul AusterEvery writer has his writing technique – what he can and can’t do to describe something like war or history. I’m not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.
Haruki MurakamiI don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.
Maya AngelouThere should be a point to movies. Sure, you’re giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom.
George LucasIt’s easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.
RihannaIt is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
AristotleDo not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
Mark TwainI would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.
Taylor SwiftHold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘
Maya AngelouTell the truth, but tell it slant.
Emily DickinsonAnimation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.
Walt DisneyIf my life was a movie, no one would believe it.
Arnold SchwarzeneggerYou see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it’s always just one person encountering the book, it’s not an audience, it’s one to one.
Paul AusterFantasy is uni-age. You can start it in the creche, and it follows you to death.
Terry PratchettStories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.
Haruki MurakamiHomer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
AristotleMy fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.
Taylor SwiftI’m entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they’re thinking and who they are and who’s hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what’s the story, really?
Alice WalkerA good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
Gilbert K. Chesterton‚Thursday‘ is a conceptual album. Whatever that situation was, I spent the whole album focusing on that situation.
The WeekndA special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.
George LucasThere wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.
George Lucas