Jonathan Gottschall Quotes

Quotes about:

• We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Sleep, Night, Marketing

  Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  48 Copy quote

• We are creatures of story, and the process of changing one mind or the whole world must begin with 'Once upon a time.'

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Once Upon A Time, Mind, Stories

  10 Copy quote

• If you want to burrow a message into a human mind. Work it into a story

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Mind, Messages, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• The average daydream is about fourteen seconds long and we have about two thousand of them per day. In other words, we spend about half of our waking hours - one-third of our lives on earth - spinning fantasies.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Average, Two, Long

  Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.11, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

• Story is where people go to practice the key skills of human social life.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Skills, Keys, Practice

  Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.57, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• The storytelling mind is allergic to uncertainty, randomness, and coincidence. It is addicted to meaning. If the storytelling mind cannot find meaningful patterns in the world, it will try to impose them. In short, the storytelling mind is a factory that churns out true stories when it can, but will manufacture lies when it can’t.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Meaningful, Lying, Mind

  Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.103, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• The brain stays up all night telling stories while we sleep. We just call them dreams.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Dream, Sleep, Night

  11 Copy quote

• Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Attitude, Writing, Psychology

  8 Copy quote

• Human minds yield helplessly to the suction of story. No matter how hard we concentrate, no matter how deep we dig in our heels, we just can't resist the gravity of alternate worlds.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Yield, Mind, Stories

  Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.3, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• We are a species addicted to a stories.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Stories, Species

  4 Copy quote

• Humans simply aren’t moved to action by 'data dumps,' dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures. People are moved by emotion. The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with “Once upon a time

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Data, People, Once Upon A Time

  10 Copy quote

• We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Intellectual, Stories, Skeptical

  Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Intellectual, Fiction, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• Fighting is really, really rewarding. I truly enjoyed it. I got feelings from fighting that were bigger than those I had experienced in almost any other realm of my life. It made me feel awake in a way that I had never been awake. Those kinds of big emotions and big experiences may come with a heavy price tag.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Fighting, Price Tag, Feelings

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• Bull riding is probably the most dangerous sport in the world in terms of head injuries.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Sports, World, Riding

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• What you do in a fight gym is learn how to be brave. You're learning how to punch and kick in a proper way, of course, but above all else, a fighter is someone who's got courage, who's dead game in a fight. Most guys don't come into the world that way. You learn to be brave through that process of getting your fear and timidity beaten out of you night after night after night.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Fighting, Night, Games

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• Don't despair for story's future or turn curmudgeonly over the rise of video games or reality TV. The way we experience story will evolve, but as storytelling animals, we will no more give it up than start walking on all fours.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Reality, Animal, Games

  4 Copy quote

• If someone breaks into your home when you're there - that is, they don't wait to be sure that the house is empty - it's a bad situation. Honor doesn't come into it at all. Anything you need to do to survive at that point becomes A-OK.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Home, Waiting, House

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• If I do get a handgun, I can take it to the sheriff's department, and in about as much time as it would take me to order a value meal at Wendy's, they will give me a concealed-carry license. There will be no screening at all to see whether I'm qualified to carry a gun in public - which I absolutely am not. That's one of the reasons I haven't gotten a gun in the first place: I don't know how to use one.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Gun, Order, Giving

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• Part of why I was attracted to the idea of owning a gun was self-defense, and part of it was that I've been fascinated by guns since I was a little kid, and I want to play with them. It seems like a lot of fun.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Fun, Kids, Gun

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• I'm living in the heart of gun culture, but I'm not a gun guy. I didn't grow up with them; I was never a hunter; my dad was never a hunter.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Growing Up, Dad, Heart

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• Whenever I was confronted in the schoolyard, I found some way to avoid the fight. I ran for it. I backed down. Psychologically and emotionally, that isn't a low-cost course of action for most boys. You avoid a physical beating, but you pay a real social and psychological cost for it. Those moments of walking away from fights, even though I knew it was the rational and civilized thing to do, cost me tremendously.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Real, Fighting, Boys

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• In my profession more generally, it's not an exaggeration to say that masculinity is viewed as the root of all evil. If you were to take a literary theory course, you might think it would be about literature, but it's really not. It's about all the various forms of oppression on earth and how we can see them playing out in literary works. And behind all these forms of oppression is a guy.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Thinking, Literary Theory, Roots

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• I can walk into a gun store in my town and buy military-grade weapons. You'd be shocked by the amount of firepower you can buy - 50 caliber sniper rifles and the same shotguns the Marines carry in Iraq or Afghanistan. It doesn't matter whether I know how to use these things - I can just walk into a store and buy them.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Military, Marine, Gun

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• Putting gloves on the fighters was a symbolic change that suggested that we were now making it a civilized sport, and it was no longer this crazy gladiatorial throwback to ancient Rome. It's even in our language: If you want to get serious and violent, what do you do? You "take the gloves off." Bare-fisted is supposedly a much more dangerous way to hit someone. But we've got it completely backward. The glove is a weapon. It massively accentuates the ability of the fist to do harm.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Sports, Crazy, Rome

  "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.

  15 Copy quote

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