Quotes on “storytelling”

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.

But I'm going to try to tell the truth. Except for the parts I'm leav­ing out, because there's still stuff I'm just not going to tell you. Get used to it.

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

You can fix anything but a blank page.

Every great love starts with a great story...

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.

[I]t is the wine that leads me on,the wild winethat sets the wisest man to singat the top of his lungs,laugh like a fool – it drives theman to dancing... it eventempts him to blurt out storiesbetter never told.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.

There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.