Give a hundred writers the same idea and you’ll get a hundred different stories.

A story conducted by the time of a clock and calendars alone would be a story not of human beings but of mechanical toys.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it’s about and why...

I have so many different voices and stories to tell.

Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night’s sleep, and strangers’ monologues framed like Russian short stories.

Stories don’t always have happy endings.”This stopped him. Because they didn’t, did they? That’s one thing the monster had definitely taught him. Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn’t expect.

I tried to convey to the boy how people’s lives are often altered by curved lines read slowly from paper, sand, or stone.

Would you believe in a story without the heroes? There are stories without heroes.

You should never turn down the offer of another man’s story,’ the fox persisted, moving off a little further into the trees ahead. ‘Stories are the only thing that separates us from the animals after...

Fictions are realities we don’t think of, that are happening to people we know nothing about.

But she always kept on until the end. She knew, as i knew, that you don’t stop a story half done. You keep on going, through heartbreak and pain and fear, and times there is...

Without archives many stories of real people would be lost, and along with those stories, vital clues that allow us to reflect and interpret our lives today.

Life doesn’t happen to you, but for you. Lessons can be found in everyone’s story.

Stories don’t care who takes part in them. All that matters if that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical...

A story is inside of us all. Each word and sentence is alive and we grace the pages to keep it from dying.

Remember that the truth within yourself will always be greater than the truth found in these pages. These stories are here to guide us—to help us find that truth, not to tell us what it...

The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the end of our story-book.”(Introductory lecture as professor of Latin at University College, London, 3 October...

My story is of such marvel that if it were written with a needle on the corner of an eye, it would yet serve as a lesson to those who seek wisdom.

Our stories are the tellers of us. -Little Bee

I spent a lot of my childhood in my own head, making up stories. I didn’t have a lot of outside influences, so I was able to make my own decisions about what I wanted...

[W]e wouldn’t want to read a book about a perfect character who never struggles with character flaws, a difficult past, or interpersonal conflict. Writers can powerfully connect with readers when they venture to these thin...

You have to be careful what you write and not allow self righteousness to cloud your ability to be objective. This story is not about you, it’s about people and things that no one else...

‘The New Yorker’s fiction podcast I like a lot, where they have authors pick short stories by other authors that appeared in ‘The New Yorker.’

People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

There are many things worth telling that are not quite narrative. And eternity itself possesses no beginning, middle or end. Fossils, arrowheads, castle ruins, empty crosses: from the Parthenon to the Bo Tree to a...

We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn’t mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It’s a good calling, then, to speak a better story....

There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth...

Stories are different every time you tell them – they allow so many possible narratives.

I was dreading all of the ghost stories of working on American television, not in the least, the length. In Britain, a series is six episodes of an hour drama, maybe sometimes eight, but never...

Stories come alive in the telling. (…)They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination and transform...

Jesus wastes none of our stories, even our tales of woe. He transforms them into epic adventures where we dare to face our past for the sake of our present.

For the narrative to exist, so that it could be read and reread even if I was taken away. Stories outlive their writers all the time. We know plenty about Goethe and Charles Dickens from...

How convinced are you that man was created in the image of God when you can’t see the image of God?

Of course you don’t believe in fairies. You’re fifteen. You think I believed in fairies at fifteen? Took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe. Anyway, he wasn’t...

When you hear a true story, there is a part of you that responds to it regardless of art, regardless of evidence. Let it be the most obvious fabrication and you will still believe whatever...

There are stories told to him only at this time of year. Fantastic, magical stories, the old Hollier in the woods finding only three red berries, which peel back in the night to reveal gifts...

When I was a kid, Granpa Portman’s fantastic stories meant it was possible to live a magical life. Even after I stopped believing them, there was still something magical about my grandfather. To have endured...

I’ve always believed in working hard, and I’m grateful that people seem to connect with the kinds of stories I’m passionate about telling.

I like small stories.

I don’t like the word ‘allegorical’, I don’t like the word ‘symbolic’ – the word I really like is ‘mythic’, and people always think that means ‘full of lies’, whereas of course what it really...

Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.

All the things that were read to me by my father were stories about things becoming all right.

There’s a Palestine that dwells inside all of us, a Palestine that needs to be rescued: a free Palestine where all people regardless of color, religion, or race coexist; a Palestine where the meaning of...

You’re going to die, you know.” However much we try to ignore it, our consciousness haunts us with this knowledge. Our heads were baptized in the font of death; they are doused with the horror...

Stories, like conjuring tricks, are invented because history is inadequate for our dreams.

The African continent has so many stories to tell, it’s about time they are told, by them – not us.

This love is hard core. Let’s make it soft porn.

Often, when I am able to check out a book, I read it a dozen times before returning it, desperate to remain lost in the magic of someone else’s story.

People who understand everything get no stories.