All the causes or purposes of all our acts are just stories we tell ourselves, stories we believe or disbelieve, changing all the time. But still we live, still we act, and all those acts have some kind of cause. The patterns all fit together into a web that connects everyone who's ever lived with everyone else. And every new person changes the web, adds to it, changes the connections, makes it all different. That's what I find with this program, how you believe you fit into the web Not how I really fit? How can I know? How can I measure it? I discover the stories that you believe most secretly, the stories that control your acts. But the very telling of the story changes the way you believe. Moves some things into the open, changes who you are. I undo my work by doing it
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Our beliefs and stories shape our actions and the web of connections between people, but telling them changes the stories.
- In plain terms
- We live by stories we tell ourselves that connect us to others, but telling them changes them.
- What can you take from it?
- Stories define us but are altered by how we share them.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Who are we without our stories?
- How does sharing change beliefs?
Another view
It assumes all actions are driven by stories we know.
More from Orson Scott Card
What a clear world you live in. All the lines neatly drawn
Permalink to quote #723 A way to make it respond to who a person really is. Cut through all the: Yes? Just wondering Cut through all the ? Stories we tell ourselves. All the lies that…
Permalink to quote #725 Surely a balance between two hungers leaves both satisfied.
Permalink to quote #722
Related quotes
No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.
Mitch AlbomMitch Albom quote #2 I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn…
Frances FarmerFrances Farmer quote #7 Lines formed at Ruby Pier - just as a line formed someplace else: Five people, waiting, in five chosen memories, for a little girl named Amy or Annie to grow a…
Mitch AlbomMitch Albom quote #17