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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"According to Chekhov," Tamaru said, rising from his chair, "once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired." "Meaning what?" "Meaning, don't bring unnecessary props into a story. If a pistol appears, it has to be fired at some point. Chekhov liked to write stories that did away with all useless ornamentation."
"I never plan. I never know what the next page is going to be..... But that's the fun of writing a novel or a story, because I don't know what's going to happen next."
"Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can't help but link up with all sorts of myths. Myths are like a reservoir containing every story there is."
"What I'd like to be is a unique writer who's different from everybody else. I want to be a writer who tells stories unlike other writers'."
"I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read. The story of my childhood is the usual bleak fantasy, and we can dismiss it with the restrained observation that I certainly would not consider living it again."
"Being a Dodgers fan led to my first Air Force court-martial, but that's another story."
"Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito, having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation."
"It seems to me that romantic comedies used to be about falling in love, but in recent years they've really become just comedies where the love story is only there as a spine to hang the jokes on."
"There's only one story, the story of your life."
"I just wrapped 'Eclipse' yesterday and the last scene we shot is probably my favorite thus far. I finally got to tell my story, in a very gentle yet elaborate way."
"I'll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it's disappointing."
"I could have written a story about a well-adjusted family. Ned Stark comes down to King’s Landing and takes over and solves all their problems. Would that have been as exciting?"
"I have some other novels I want to write. I have a lot of short stories - I love the short story."
"It was a story called ‘The Hero’ which I sold to Galaxy magazine in 1970, for $94."
"almost all novels are love stories."
"Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time tells the story of a cosmologist whose speech is interrupted by a little old lady who informs him that the universe rests on the back of a turtle. Ah, yes, madame, the scientist replies, but what does the turtle rest on? The old lady shoots back: You can't trick me, young man. It's nothing but turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down."
"If you just tell the story of what the storys about, then it sparks curiosity, but I think it also arouses suspicion, as you say, that it could be overly sentimental. But it so isnt. And I think it was all about doing the inner work and then underplaying everything."
"The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of mill-stones, and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them."
"I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller"
"I am the fool in this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne."
