#Stories Quotes

“We are defined by the stories we tell ourselves.”

“How are we to account for the strange human craving for the pleasure of feeling afraid which is so much involved in our love of ghost stories?”

“I have no liking for novels or stories - none in the world; and so, whenever I read one - which is not oftener than once in two years, and even in these same cases I seldom read beyond the middle of the book - my distaste for the vehicle always taints my judgment of the literature itself, as a matter of course; and also of course makes my verdict valuless. Are you saying "You have written stories yourself." Quite true: but the fact that an Indian likes to scalp people is no evidence that he likes to be scalped.”

“Stories are as unique as the people who tell them, and the best stories are in which the ending is a surprise.”

“Wherever men have lived, there is a story to be told”

“When I really want to learn about something, I write a book on it. Then the real research begins, as I begin to hear people's stories, and huge amounts of information begins to comes straight to my doorstep. Then I can write an even better book the next time!”

“Books ought to have good endings.How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?”

“It was one of those fine little love stories that can make you smile in your sleep at night.”

“Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story.”

“But you speak of Master Gandalf, as if he was in a story that had come to an end.' 'Yes, we do,' said Pippin sadly. 'The story seems to be going on, but I am afraid Gandalf has fallen out of it.”

“[Polo Is My Life] is what's called a sex book - you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco. Most of my stories are tales of anguish, stress and grief.”

“I loved [fairy stories] so, and my mother weighed down by grief had given up telling me them. At Nohant I found Mmes. d'Ardony's and Perrault's tales in old editions which became my chief joy for five or six years ... I've never read them since, but I could tell each tale straight through, and I don't think anything in all one's intellecutal life can be compared to these delights of imagination.”

“The purpose of a story is to be an axe that breaks up the ice within us.”

“Instead of making up stories, stay with the facts. For example, "I am ruined" is a story. It limits you and prevents you from taking effective action. "I have 50 cents left in my bank account" is a fact.”

“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death.”

“That's what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried with them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories.”

“Great stories teach you something. That's one reason I haven't slipped into some sort of retirement: I always feel like I'm learning something new.”