183 Story Quotes

I want the reader to feel something is astonishing. Not the 'what happens,' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.

In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession.

How terribly hard and almost impossible it is to tell the truth. More than anything else, the artist in us prevents us from telling aught as it really happened. We deal with the truth as the cook deals with meat and vegetables.

And the wind will whip your tousled hair, The sun, the rain, the sweet despair, Great tales of love and strife. And somewhere on your path to glory You will write your story of a life.

And all the trips you know you missed And all the lips you never kissed Cut through you like a knife. And now you see stretched out before thee Just another story of a life.

He comes into the world God knows how, walks on the water, gets out of his grave and goes up off the Hill of Howth. What drivel is this?

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine.

Reality is not always probable, or likely. But if you're writing a story, you have to make it as plausible as you can, because if not, the reader's imagination will reject it.

Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.

The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed within. Were these to be worthily recounted, they would form a narrative of no small interest and instruction, and possessing, moreover, a certain remarkable unity, which might almost seem the result of artistic arrangement.

When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.

I don't know why I told this story. I could just as well have told another. Perhaps some other time I'll be able to tell another. Living souls, you will see how alike they are.

The memory came faint and cold of the story I might have told, a story in the likeness of my life, I mean without the courage to end or the strength to go on.

A good ending is vital to a picture, the single most important element, because it is what the audience takes with them out of the theater.

O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.

You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written -- behind your silence and your suffering.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say - and to feel - 'Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought.'

I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.

One flew east, One flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious - and what is too often overlooked - is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

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 ('but of course that's why he was doing that, and that means that...') and it's magic and wonderful and strange.

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.

I staggered into a Manchester bar late one night on a tour and the waitress said 'You look as if you need a Screaming Orgasm'. At the time this was the last thing on my mind...

'I was born in the back seat of a Yellow Cab in a hospital loading zone and with the meter still running. I emerged needing a shave and shouted 'Time Square, and step on it!''

There is a popular superstition that 'realism' asserts itself in the cataloguing of a great number of material objects, in explaining mechanical processes, the methods of operating manufactories and trades, and in minutely and unsparingly describing physical sensations. But is not realism, more than it is anything else, an attitude of mind on the part of the writer toward his material, a vague indication of the sympathy and candour with which he accepts, rather than chooses, his theme?

Little Boy Blue...he needed the money!

For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul.

I was quite surprised to find out all the places that he knew And so I asked the townfolk if his stories were true They said- Old John was born here, he's lived here all his life He's never had a woman, let alone a wife. And very soon you'll find out as you check around That no one named Corey's ever lived in this town So I chided the old man 'bout the truth that I had heard He smiled and said- Reality is only just a word.

'I still skate occasionally but last time I did, at our show in Hanford, I did a 360 front side varial over our rolled-up banner and broke every damn bone in my body. Ok, I only broke one bone. Well, I didn't break any bones, but I could have!'

Time passed in a blur of tropical days and long, sultry, lonely nights. And then came the day I discovered I was not alone. It happened in a banana grove.

'I can never bring myself to believe it, John,' said Mary Walker, the pretty daughter of Mr. George Walker, attorney, of Silverbridge.

'It's all over,' he said to Cooke. 'You've got to come clean. The notes show us the story is wrong. We know it. We can show you point by point how you concocted it.'

The story of Soundgarden is my own story in a way, so why should I be afraid to talk about it? There's always a question that leads back to Soundgarden and I'm proud that I was part of the band, so why should I mind talking about it? After all, it was a great time for the most part of it.

One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand.

I was once told I was a powerful wizard by a homeless person.

You want me to begin a novel with The two women were alone in the London flat?

On this night 25 years ago, from the testicles of Vince McMahon himself came something so horrifying it sends chills up and down the bodies of men all over the world: tonight marks the birth of Stephanie McMahon.

'...I wonder if you remember the story mummy read us the evening Sebastian first got drunk - I mean the bad evening. 'Father Brown' said something like 'I caught him' (the thief) 'with an unseen hook and and invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.''[1]

When I was a boy, I said, 'Daddy, take me to the zoo.' My father said, 'Son, when the zoo wants you, they'll come and get you'.

Once after a dinner party, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire home. Fred lived in a colonial house that had a long porch with many pillars. When we dropped him off, he danced along the whole front porch, then opened the door, tipped his hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak for a few minutes. It was a beautiful way to say thank you.

This feat of Tell, the archer, will be told While yonder mountains stand upon their base. By heaven! The apple's cleft right through the core.

Hansel and Gretel discovered the ginger bread house about 45 minutes after they discovered the mushrooms.

In the beginning the world was covered with darkness. There was no sun, no day. The perpetual night had no moon or stars. There were, however, all manner of beasts and birds. Among the beasts were many hideous, nameless monsters, as well as dragons, lions, tigers, wolves, foxes, beavers, rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice, and all manner of creeping things such as lizards and serpents. Mankind could not prosper under such conditions, for the beasts and serpents destroyed all human offspring. All creatures had the power of speech and were gifted with reason.

Fairy tales are more than true - not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.

I think my escape from the Siberian Transport was my most difficult performance. I was placed in the great vault usually assigned to political prisoners, and when the great door was shut, I had the hardest time of my life, perhaps, in releasing myself. But nevertheless, it took me 18 minutes to walk out, and face the dazed officials.

It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show. The way I came by it was this...

I should say that, in addition to my tree-love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings, the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all, and the fear (near certainty) that it would be 'not at all'. The war had arisen to darken all horizons. But no such analyses are a complete explanation even of a short story...

Niggle thought that he had never heard anything so generous as that Voice. It made Gentle Treatment sound like a load of rich gifts, and the summons to a King's feast. Then suddenly Niggle felt ashamed. To hear that he was considered a case for Gentle Treatment overwhelmed him, and made him blush in the dark. It was like being publicly praised, when you and all the audience knew that the praise was not deserved. Niggle hid his blushes in the rough blanket. There was a silence. Then the First Voice spoke to Niggle, quite close. 'You have been listening,' it said.

It's very important for me to be in movies that don't have a message. Messages tend to be a little preachy, and I don't think that's what movies are about. It's important for me to be in movies that have a human level, have a heart in them. That's the reason why I did this (Rendition) and it just so happens to be really topical. This political issue is a very important one right now which as Americans we need to look at. So it seems like it's (the film) is very political, it seems like there's a message in it, but ultimately there's a real story about human beings dealing with actual human things.

The last word in stolentelling! (424.35)

But seriously, and I'm not making a joke: was the ending happy or sad?

Leithen's story had bored and puzzled me at the start, but now it had somehow gripped my fancy. Space a domain of endless corridors and Presences moving in them! The world was not quite the same as an hour ago. It was the hour, as the French say, 'between dog and wolf,' when the mind is disposed to marvels.

Then lies him down the lubber fiend, And stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength.

For when we are interested in the beauty of a thing, the oftener we can see it the better; but when we are interested only by the story of a thing, we get tired of hearing the same tale told over and over again, and stopping always at the same point - we want a new story presently, a newer and better one - and the picture of the day, and novel of the day, become as ephemeral as the coiffure or the bonnet of the day. Now this spirit is wholly adverse to the existence of any lovely art. If you mean to throw it aside to-morrow, you can never have it to-day.

His name was Jermyn, and he dodged all day long about the galley drying his handkerchief before the stove. Apparently he never slept. He was a dismal man, with a perpetual tear sparkling at the end of his nose, who either had been in trouble, or was in trouble, or expected to be in trouble - couldn't be happy unless something went wrong. He mistrusted my youth, my common-sense, and my seamanship, and made a point of showing it in a hundred little ways. I dare say he was right. It seems to me I knew very little then, and I know not much more now; but I cherish a hate for that Jermyn to this day.

Nobody knows about my man. They think he's lost on some horizon. And suddenly I find myself Listening to a man I've never known before, Telling me about the sea, All his love, 'til Eternity.

There was a story that some EMI execs had come down to see you and you'd said something like: 'Here's what I've been working on,' and then produced some cakes from your oven. True? 'No! I don't know where that came from. I thought that was quite funny actually. It presents me as this homely creature, which is all right, isn't it?'

The new album, Hounds of Love, breaks new ground for Kate with the b-side. This is a story - The Ninth Wave - told in a series of songs, like a Pink Floyd concept album.

My platform is to remember that when they went out searching for Sam Houston to try to persuade him to be the governor-and he was the greatest governor this state has ever had-rumor has it that they found him drunk sleeping under a bridge with the Indians.

Sally In The Garden: Sally in the garden, Siftin' through the cinders, Lifted up her arse, And farted like a man, The busting of her britches broke fifteen windows, The cheeks of her ass went (bam, bam, bam)

You will learn nothing of importance from this story except, perhaps, how to die; but then, you were born knowing that and in any case it only has to be done once. It is easy: ask anyone who has done it.

Lonestar (Bill Pullman): 'That's all we needed, a Druish Princess!' Mel Brooks in the director's Commentary : 'I'm both proud and ashamed of that line'

Seems I keep getting this story twisted. So where's Neil when you need him?

Get me Neil on the line. No, I can't hold. Have him read 'Snow Glass Apples' where nothing is what it seems.

'At a time when doom-sayers were hopping around saying everyone was going to starve, Norman was working. He moved to Mexico and lived among the people there until he figured out how to improve the output of the farmers. So that saved a million lives. Then he packed up his family and moved to India, where in spite of a war with Pakistan, he managed to introduce new wheat strains that quadrupled their food output. So that saved another million. You get it? But he wasn't done. He did the same thing with a new rice in China. He's doing the same thing in Africa -- as much of Africa as he's allowed to visit. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1970, they said he had saved a billion people. That's BILLION! BUH! That's Carl Sagan BILLION with a 'B'! And most of them were a different race from him. Norman is the greatest human being, and you probably never heard of him.'

Oliver Cromwell had certainly this afflatus. One that I knew was at the battle of Dunbar, told me that Oliver was carried on with a Divine impulse; he did laugh so excessively as if he had been drunk; his eyes sparkled with spirits. He obtain'd a great victory; but the action was said to be contrary to human prudence. The same fit of laughter seized Oliver Cromwell just before the battle of Naseby; as a kinsman of mine, and a great favourite of his, Colonel J. P. then present, testified. Cardinal Mazerine said, that he was a lucky fool.

You have to admire Oprah Winfrey. She is the most powerful woman in the country and comes from a very humble background. The woman has succeeded on talent and energy.

I am going to write you into a story someday, my friend. Remember that the ultimate power is mine. You may decide what you will do in this life, up to the point. But I will decide what others think of you, and not just now but long after you're dead. (The Tales of Alvin Maker)

Mrs. Banks did not notice what was happening behind her, but Jane and Michael, watching from the top landing, had an excellent view of the extraordinary thing the visitor now did. Certainly she followed Mrs. Banks upstairs, but not in the usual way. With her large bag in her hands she slid gracefully up the banisters, and arrived at the landing at the same time as Mrs. Banks. Such a thing, Jane and Michael knew, had never been done before. Down, of course, for they had often done it themselves. But up - never! They gazed curiously at the strange new visitor.

In an interview which appeared in The Paris Review in 1982 the interviewers asked Travers whether 'Mary Poppins' teaching - if one can call it that - resemble that of Christ in his parables'. Travers replied: 'My Zen master, because I've studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and all the stories weren't written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story. And someone else, who is a bit of a Don Juan, told me that every one of the stories is a moment of tremendous sexual passion, because it begins with such tension and then it is reconciled and resolved in a way that is gloriously sensual'. The answer is clarified by the following question: 'So people can read anything and everything into the stories?'. 'Indeed'

Well I'll just skip the boring parts chapters one, two, three and get to the place where you can read my face and my biography.

One of the biggest box-office successes in movie history - probably because for young audiences it's like getting a box of Cracker Jack that is all prizes. Written and directed by George Lucas, the film is enjoyable in its own terms, but it's exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. There's no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the image of a double sunset. The loudness, the smash-and-grab editing, and the relentless pacing drive every idea out of your head, and even if you've been entertained, you may feel cheated of some dimension - a sense of wonder, perhaps. It's an epic without a dream.

We were passers on the street. I never thought we'd meet until I said 'How do you do, my love? ~ 'Simonize'

And the priests, with awe, As such freaks they saw, Said, 'The Devil must be in that little Jackdaw!'

And six little Singing-boys,-dear little souls! In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles, Came in order due, Two by two, Marching that grand refectory through.

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look, He call'd for his candle, his bell, and his book: In holy anger, and pious grief, He solemnly curs'd that rascally thief! He curs'd him at board, he curs'd him in bed, From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head! He curs'd him in sleeping, that every night He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright; He curs'd him in eating, he curs'd him in drinking, He curs'd him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking; He curs'd him in sitting, in standing, in lying; He curs'd him in walking, in riding, in flying; He curs'd him in living, he curs'd him in dying! Never was heard such a terrible curse! But what gave rise To no little surprise, Nobody seem'd one penny the worse!

I recall an old Sufi story of a good man who was granted one wish by God. The man said he would like to go about doing good without knowing about it. God granted his wish. And then God decided that it was such a good idea, he would grant that wish to all human beings. And so it has been to this day.

And then she went to the porridge of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that; and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.

Somebody has been sitting in my chair!

He came to ask what he had found, That was so large, and smooth, and round.

One day I heard that The Eye had left Mexico. I wasn't surprised that he hadn't said good-bye. The Eye never said good-bye to anyone. I never said good-bye to anyone either.

Wild Wild West is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen. You know something has gone wrong when a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset.

Khan is played as a cauldron of resentment by Ricardo Montalban, and his performance is so strong that he helps illustrate a general principle involving not only Star Trek but Star Wars and all the epic serials, especially the James Bond movies: Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph.

He made him a hut, wherein he did put The carcass of Robinson Crusoe. O poor Robinson Crusoe!

I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach.

Included in this 'almost nothing,' as a kind of geological afterthought of the last few million years, is the first development of self-conscious intelligence on this planet-an odd and unpredictable invention of a little twig on the mammalian evolutionary bush. Any definition of this uniqueness, embedded as it is in our possession of language, must involve our ability to frame the world as stories and to transmit these tales to others. If our propensity to grasp nature as story has distorted our perceptions, I shall accept this limit of mentality upon knowledge, for we receive in trade both the joys of literature and the core of our being.

Death had to take him in his sleep, for if he was awake there'd have been a fight.

Walkin' on a city street who would think you could ever be touched By a total stranger, not me But when you came up to me that day and I listened to your story It reminded me so much of myself It wasn't what you said but the way it felt to me About a search and a journey just like mine.

'Let's take a look at some of the events that led up to this exciting match-up we're about to see'