I always take a story that’s kind of out there, like an urban myth. I take some possibility that people imagine, that they are familiar with, and try to turn it into a story.

A good book ought to have something simple about it. And, like Eve, it ought to come from somewhere near the third rib: there ought to be a heart beating in it. A story that’s...

And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen, introducing characters to memory like old friends.

I like historical fiction. I fell in love with New Orleans the first time I visited it. And I wanted to place a story in New Orleans.

He made me feel unhinged . . . like he could take me apart and put me back together again and again.

The story is uneven in its progression.

Songs are like children. They are all special to me – you can’t just pick a favorite. Of course, ‘Lucky Man’ was a special tune with a wonderful story behind it. They have all done...

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the ‘what if – what then’ approach to...

a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.

With the right mindset, you can turn a painful downfall into a setup for a great success story.

The minute that you bring a unicorn into a story, you know that it’s a fairy tale or a fable, because unicorns don’t exist as animals. They exist as fantasy creatures.

When story and behavior are consistent, we relax; when story and behavior are inconsistent, we get tense. We have a deep psychological need for our stories and behaviors to be consistent. We need to be...

There is a sense that animated movies are suddenly a genre. I just don’t believe they are; it’s a technique to tell a story.

Nema novih priča. Svaka priča je stara, već poznata i bezroj puta ponovljena. Kao što se svaki život kreće od rođenja do smrti, tako se i svaka priča kreće od početka do kraja. Čak i...

That story you’re scared to share — that story has the power to change both your life and the lives of others.

I love involving actors at all levels – and they have to know that I want to hear their contributions, with dialogue, with story suggestions, with script changes, whatever.

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are...

If you end your story, it’s a static work of art, a finite circle. But if you don’t, it belongs to anyone’s imagination. It stays alive forever.

No one could say the stories were uselessfor as the tongue clackedfive or forty fingers stitchedcorn was grated from the huskpathwork was piecedor the darning was done…(from ‘The Storyteller Poems’)

The monsters were neverunder my bed.Because the monsterswere inside my head.I fear no monsters,for no monsters I see.Because all this timethe monster has been me.

A good story or a book is all about it’s power to hold it’s readers still till the very last word of it’s climax – complexity in language, dialogues, descriptions, everything else is secondary!

One recalls the literary writer who, after grasping a story of a Mars voyage as a metaphor for isolation and the precariousness of relationships, realized that at a deeper, more subtle level it might even...

Curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns. Story plays to this universal desire by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening situations.

Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don’t forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.

I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story.

Looking out at the ocean, it’s easy to feel small – and to imagine all your troubles, suddenly insignificant, slipping away. Earth’s seven oceans seem vast and impenetrable, but a closer look tells another story.

Sometimes when we say “God is silent,” what’s really going on is that he hasn’t told the story the way we wanted it told. He will be silent when we want him to fill in...

The reason most comedies don’t win awards is that the filmmakers put the comedy first. This means you have to create a story around the jokes.

It’s easy to think that if we had a different house, different car, different job, different relationship, different city, everything would be different; that we would feel different then.The problem is, you are the main...

‘Radioactive’ is the fall out of my life’s inspirations, a testament to my ability to survive it all and to tell the story.

In general, I think you can watch a movie in two different ways. One is the ethical point of view, one is the point of view of the story.

Oh yes, I’ve been approached to do all sorts of nonsense. How about a remake of ‘West Side Story?’

Am not great, but being the story of every whisper is just the greatest.

All of us to one degree or another disconnect from God’s story because we are fundamentally committed to being the author of our own stories.

Love is infinite. Grief can lead to love. Love can lead to grief. Grief is a love story told backward just as love is a grief story told backward.

A hero isn’t a hero until he brings the boon back to the tribe.

An author is like an incompetent bricklayer – doesn’t use mortar and keeps rearranging the bricks until someone tells him to stop.

Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself,”Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed–No, my mistake,...

Well, at least this is what I told myself every day as I fell asleep with the fire still burning and the moon shining high up in the sky and my head spinning comforting from...

We are drawn uncontrollably to each other and have no power to resist, only the tremendous desire to experience everything in its most intense form.

You can tell a more over-the-top incredible story if you use a nonfiction form.

Wow, you are super drunk.

official” bard were spent? Perhaps he would decide to retire in a lighthouse. For, surely, no place would be more fitting for the hero emeritus. He would gaze upon the glorious sea in recollection…guiding others...

If somebody has a chance to put my food in their mouth, that tells the story.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

It’s about stories. If I can tell the story to America, whether it’s Riesling or a boxer from Harlem, it will sell. I know on my gravestone it’s going to be, ‘Storyteller.’

Welcome to Book-a-holic Anonymous.Hi, I’m g-lyn and I addictive to the written word. I love the smell of the blackest ink sliding across lightly texture paper. My eyes squint against the lost of time within...

In our story logic which we’re making up, if we’re saying he’s alive, then like a quadriplegic who’s in bed he can move his head and shoulders, but he can’t move his arms. If he...

It’s very hard when you’re doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.

I was walking around in an almost blind, crazy rage of madness. There was a story burning a hole in my brain, and it was dying to come out on paper. It was begging of...