Telling Stories Quotes

• The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Peace, Science, Technology

  Muriel Rukeyser (1994). “Out of Silence: Selected Poems”, p.135, Northwestern University Press

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• If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Writing, History, Stories

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• There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Moving On, Powerful

  FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Feb 14, 2013

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• Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

  Robert McKee

  Leadership, Morning, Powerful

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.

  Hannah Arendt

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  Hannah Arendt (1970). “Men in Dark Times”, p.115, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.

  Isak Dinesen

  Writing, Sorrow, Ifs

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• Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.

  Barry Lopez

  Inspire, Needs, Stories

  FaceBook post by Barry Lopez from Aug 10, 2010

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• We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

  Joan Didion

  Writing, Order, Stories

  1979 The White Album,'The White Album, 1'.

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• Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Courage, Stories, Alive

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• There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Writing, Library, Stories

  Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.31, Ultramarine Publishing

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• After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

  Philip Pullman

  Book, Writing, Mind

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• Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.

  Ben Okri

  Fear, Heart, Conquer

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• There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

  Willa Cather

  Life, Wise, Niece

  O Pioneers! pt. 2, ch. 4 (1913)

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• We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — "Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought."

  John Steinbeck

  Loneliness, Animal, Trying

  "In Awe of Words". The Exonian, 75th anniversary edition, Exeter University, 1930.

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• One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Second Chance, Mind, Stories

  "Of Opinions". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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• We need art. We've been telling stories since the beginning. As human beings, we need it for our survival.

  Lili Taylor

  Art, Survival, Needs

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• Everyone sleeps, except lovers, who stay awake, telling stories to God

  Rumi

  Sleep, Stories, Lovers

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• By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.

  Tim O'Brien

  Stories, Facts, Helping

  Tim O'Brien (2009). “The Things They Carried”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.'

  Chelsea Clinton

  Grandmother, Differences, Making A Difference

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• I write my own stories. I like telling stories to little children. I think the good thing about stories is they carry you to another place which you've never been. And you feel like you're just enveloped by the book and the characters.

  Georgie Henley

  Children, Book, Writing

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• When there's so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you've already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

  Dave Grohl

  Focus, Stories, Done

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• I seem to enjoy telling stories with a central absence, with a lacuna tunnelled into them.

  Junot Diaz

  Stories, Absence, Enjoy

  "This Week in Fiction: Junot Diaz" by Cressida Leyshon, www.newyorker.com. May 27, 2012.

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• I 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 Bourdain

  Would Be, Stories, Misery

  "The Omnivore’s Agenda: An Interview with Anthony Bourdain". Interview with Clara Jeffery, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2010.

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• My very first lessons in the art of telling stories took place in the kitchen . . . my mother and three or four of her friends. . . told stories. . .with effortless art and technique. They were natural-born storytellers in the oral tradition.

  Paule Marshall

  Mother, Art, Kitchen

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• I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.

  Francis Ford Coppola

  Stories, Wanted, Playwright

  "Five Oscars as a Producer, Director and Screenwriter". The Academy of Achievement, www.achievement.org. June 17, 1994.

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