Stories quotes
6.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside stories — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I can sort of do what I want. Maybe I have to work harder to prove myself in some new relationship because they've heard some wacky stories about me. But at least I can get the meeting."
"The challenge of the unknown future is so much more exciting than the stories of the accomplished past."
"Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it."
"I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy."
"Then the writing became so fluid that I sometimes felt as if I were writing for the sheer pleasure of telling a story, which may be the human condition that most resembles levitation."
"A story must be told or there'll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving."
"Then Elrond and Galadriel rode on; for the Third Age was over and the Days of the Rings were passed and an end was come of the story and song of those times."
"It's the same story as when we nationalized the banks. I'm not for nationalization because of the rhetoric of nationalization, or because I see in nationalization the cure-all for every injustice. I'm for nationalization in cases where it's necessary."
"If you are pointing out one of the things a story is about, then you are very probably right; if you are pointing out the only thing a story is about you are very probably wrong - even if you're the author."
"Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable."
"I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen, it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself."
"We make the oldest stories new when we succeed, and we are trapped by the old stories when we fail"
"Well I thought my razor was dull until I heard his speech, and that reminds me of a story that's so dirty I'm ashamed to think of it myself."
"There are so many untold stories when it comes to great women of color."
"Companies thrive on the basis of the stories they tell."
"We live on the flat, on the level, and yet - and so - we aspire. Groundlings, we can sometimes reach as far as the gods. Some soar with art, others with religion; most with love. But when we soar, we can also crash. There are few soft landings. We may find ourselves bouncing across the ground with leg-fracting force, dragged towards some foreign railway line. Every love story is a potential grief story. If not at first, then later. If not for one, then for the other. Sometimes, for both."
"There is no story unless you've written it."
"History is a story written by the finger of God."
"Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity?"
"I love talking to people and hearing their stories. Everyone's got their own story to tell, and when you sit down with someone and really talk to them, you can learn so much."
