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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"But there are forces that don't let you turn back and undo things, because to do so would be to deny what is already in motion, to unwrite and erase passages, to shorten the arc of a story you don't own."
"Why should there be only one sort of photography? I want to create images with elements of my choosing, narrative or evocative... I give myself a literary frame, I tell a story."
"I like telling the story in a visual way. I don't like explaining a lot in dialogue."
"There cannot be any 'story' without a fall - all stories are ultimately about the fall - at least not for human minds as we know them and have them."
"It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story."
"A poet must discover that it’s his own story that is true, even if the truth is small indeed."
"You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness."
"I do a first draft as passionately and as quickly as I can. I believe a story is valid only when it's immediate and passionate, when it dances out of your subconscious. If you interfere in any way, you destroy it."
"The stories that you tell yourself can make or break you - no matter who you are."
"Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story."
"If you don't like someone's story, write your own."
"Time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of glory days."
"The Work always leaves you with less of a story. Who would you be without your story? You never know until you inquire. There is no story that is you or that leads to you. Every story leads away from you. Turn it around; undo it. You are what exists before all stories. You are what remains when the story is understood."
"Stories are the only enchantment possible, for when we begin to see our suffering as a story, we are saved."
"I have watched constantly that in our work the highest moral and spiritual standards are upheld, whether my productions deal with fable or with stories of living action."
"A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story"
"Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous."
"The truth about stories is, that's all we are."
"Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story."
"Your future is ahead of you. Imagine the notion of the past fifteen years of your life being a blip in your story."
