All Quotes By Tag: Stories

“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 you’re doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising… and it’s magic and wonderful and strange.”

“Stories do not change, only the lives they live in do.”

“Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity…edit one more time!”

“I don’t write stories, I write characters.”

“…stories want to be told. Stories have a power of their own … you can’t write a story until you’ve felt it. Breathed it in. Walked with your characters. Talked with them.”

“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. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them.”

“Best of stories are created at Airports, Dinner Tables and Showers!”

“If you skipped some chapters in a book it wouldn’t make much sense would it? Allow your story to unfold and connect as it should with faith that better chapters are ahead.”

“Varya has had enough therapy to know that she’s telling herself stories. She knows her faith–that rituals have power, that thoughts can change outcomes or ward off misfortune–is a magic trick: fiction, perhaps, but necessary for survival. And yet, and yet: Is it a story if you believe it?”

“waitingin a life full of little storiesfor a death to come”

“Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love.”

“The one who pulls the puppet strings knows fairytales can heal.”

“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’)”

“Then you are a poet?’ she asked, fingering the flyer in her pocket.’No not at all,’ he waved his hand. ‘I am merely a character in a poem.”

“All Bette’s stories have happy endings. That’s because she knows where to stop. She’s realized the real problem with stories—if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.”