Stories Quotes - Page 252

Traces that live within us often lead us to our stories

This may be a little bit of a provocative thing to say, but the memoirist doesn't owe the reader anything other than a good story and the inclining of the mind in the direction of memory. Of course, the memoirist is not allowed to make things up. But the really skilled memoirist knows what to leave in and what to leave out to serve the story. In autobiography you can't do that.

That MySpace is the story of the year. Everyone but my mother is on it.

I'm curious by individuals that embrace half a story so they can justify how incomplete they feel about their own self worth.

I have to say that movies have as much impact on me as music. And that I learned as much about narrative from movies as I did from reading novels, how to arrange stories, how to juxtapose things.

I worked in the story department for years, on Cars and Toy Story 3.

No one ever tells a story to help you figure out where to go when a door closes on you.

People love miracle stories and dramatic moments of transcendence or transformation, and may then pursue their own dramatic "awakenings."

To say, "It used to be better," nobody can say, "Well, no it wasn't." It's like telling a story that is self-aggrandizing about someone who has passed away, when they can't tell the other side of the story.

The success of the movie industry comes from the story. And the story comes from somebody putting something down on paper.

You can recognize in your own reading habits what writers are doing that works and what doesn't. I'm becoming much more aware of that after reading a decade of student stories.

That's how I work, whether with stories or novels - they start with an image that comes to me in a daydream, and a lot of times I'm walking around with these pictures in my head for awhile before I start writing.

I wanted to write a horror story. But in some ways, I have always thought of myself as a kind of ghost-story/horror writer, though most of the time the supernatural never actually appears on stage.

People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become.

A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.

I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

In a world where everyone is behaving honestly, any dishonesty constitutes a big infraction. But, in a world where many people are behaving dishonestly, and the news is filled with stories of their infractions, even big infractions can feel small to the perpetrator.

The fun thing about doing origin stories is you are introducing the audience to characters.

Falling in love with a story is like falling in love with a person. It tends to occupy your life, your thoughts. You can't do anything else for a long time.

Simple stories... emerge as lovely films or television pieces.

The detective story itself is in a dilemma. It is a vein which is in danger of being worked out, the demand is constant, the powers of supply variable, and the reader, with each one he absorbs, grows a little more sophisticated and harder to please, while the novelist, after each one he writes, becomes a little more exhausted.

But also there are all the famous stories about the songs that have been rejected, but then went on to become hits.

All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.

Beginning authors often get in their own way … They forget that they’ve been telling stories since they could talk. … The important thing to remember is, you know how to do this. You’ve been doing this your whole life.

Having done several of them and also loving other kinds of movies, I'm also tougher on suspense stories in terms of finding one that really excites and surprises me.