Narrative quotes

Narrative

346 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

346 quotes

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Narrative quotes (page 2 of 18)

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Jeff Bezos Entrepreneur
Narrative

"The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It's the thing that people create."

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Howard Gardner Psychologist, Educator
Narrative

"Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too."

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Edith Wharton Novelist, Short Story Writer
Narrative

"Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments and regarded as the spray into which the great wave of narrative breaks in curving towards the watcher on the shore."

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Catherine Wilson Philosopher
Narrative

"There is no single test or formula for producing moral progress anymore than there is for generating scientific truths. It is a process involving theoreticians, fact-gatherers, protestors, martyrs for the cause, authors of first- person narratives who change the way we see and evaluate the distribution of harms and benefits."

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Cornel West Philosopher
Narrative

"Well technologically and so forth, it's a breakthrough, and yet [Birth of a Nation,] it's very white supremacist to the core in terms of the narrative content."

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Willie Parker Football Player
Narrative

"Certainly, my friends and the common narrative is people are trying to shore up their own lives with regards to family planning and reproduction."

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Ted Leo Musician
Narrative

"If so much of your experience is devoted to the thought of documentation, you're already sort of spinning out this narrative from this moment that you are attempting to control instead of just experiencing it."

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Viola Davis Actress, Producer
Narrative

"I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you."

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Rebecca West Novelist, Journalist
Narrative

"one of Mr. [Thomas] Hardy's ancestors must have married a weeping willow. There are pages and pages in his collected poems which are simply plain narratives in ballad form of how an unenjoyable time was had by all."

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Sheena Iyengar Psychologist
Narrative

"The phantasmagoria, the actual experience that we try to understand and organize through narrative, varies from place to place. No single narrative serves the needs of everyone everywhere."

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Robert Morgan Poet, Novelist
Narrative

"We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not read by very many people."

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