Stories

Explore 19 quotes about Stories

Among all men on Earth, bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the Muse has taught them songs, and loves the race of bards.

Homer

The Odyssey

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Topic

Poets Poetry Stories

Speaker

Odysseus

Author

Homer

Source

The Odyssey

Medium

Poem

Genre

Epic poem

Language

Greek

Time

700 BC 700s BC 9th century BC

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Homer. Ὀδύσσεια [Odyssey]. c. 710 BC, bk. 8, l. 479-481

Current Citation

Homer. The Odyssey, edited by Bernard Knox, translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin Classics, 2006, bk. 8, l. 479-481.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

Joan Didion

The White Album

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Topic

Stories

Author

Joan Didion

Source

The White Album The White Album

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1979 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Didion, Joan. "The White Album." The White Album. Simon & Schuster, 1979.

Your heart's desire is to be told some mystery.

Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West

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Topic

The mysterious Stories Human nature

Author

Cormac McCarthy

Source

Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West

Medium

Novel

Genre

Western literature

Language

English

Time

1985 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West. Random House, 1985, ch. 17.

The sailor talks of breezes: the ploughman, of oxen: the soldier counts wounds, the shepherd counts sheep.

Sextus Propertius

Elegies (Sextus Propertius)

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Topic

Stories

Author

Sextus Propertius

Source

Elegies (Sextus Propertius)

Medium

Poem

Language

Latin

Time

24 BC 20s BC 1st century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Sextus Propertius. Elegies. c. 24 BC, bk. 2.

Current Citation

Sextus Propertius. Elegies, edited and translated by G. P. Goold. Harvard University Press, 1990, bk. 2.

Through story, every culture defines itself and teaches its children how to be people and members of their people.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Topic

Stories Culture

Author

Ursula K. Le Guin

Source

The Operating Instructions

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

2002 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Le Guin, Ursula K. "The Operating Instructions." Oregon Literary Arts meeting. 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA. Speech.

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

Ray Bradbury

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Topic

Plot Stories

Author

Ray Bradbury

Source

Zen in the Art of Writing

Language

English

Time

1990 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Bradbury, Ray. Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity. Joshua Odell Editions, 1990.

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.

Willa Cather

O Pioneers!

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Topic

Plus ça change Stories The human condition

Speaker

Carl (O Pioneers!)

Author

Willa Cather

Source

O Pioneers!

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1913 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Cather, Willa. O Pioneers! Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913, pt. 2, ch. 4.

Current Citation

Cather, Willa. O Pioneers, edited by Sharon O'Brien. W. W. Norton & Company, 2007, pt. 2, ch. 4.

"Thou shalt not" might reach the head, but it takes "Once upon a time" to reach the heart.

Philip Pullman

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Topic

Stories

Author

Philip Pullman

Source

Independent

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Pullman, Philip. "Opinion: The moral's in the story, not the stern lecture." The Independent, 17 July 1996.

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.

Zora Neale Hurston

Dust Tracks on a Road

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Topic

Creative impulse Stories Writing

Author

Zora Neale Hurston

Source

Dust Tracks on a Road

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. J. B. Lippincott Company, 1942, ch. 11.

The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. That is their mystery and their magic.

Arundhati Roy

The God of Small Things

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Topic

Stories

Author

Arundhati Roy

Source

The God of Small Things

Medium

Novel

Genre

Post-colonial literature

Language

English

Time

1997 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. Random House, 1997, ch. 12.

You know everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing or interesting.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

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Topic

Stories

Speaker

Neal Page

Actor

Steve Martin

Source

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Medium

Film

Genre

Road movie Comedy (film) Comedy

Language

English

Time

1987 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Directed by John Hughes, Hughes Entertainment, 1987.

Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us.

Susan Sontag

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Topic

Photography Stories

Author

Susan Sontag

Source

Regarding the Pain of Others

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

2003 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, ch. 5.

A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him...and in that way he becomes immortal.

Big Fish

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Topic

Stories

Speaker

Will Bloom

Actor

Billy Crudup

Source

Big Fish

Medium

Film

Genre

Fantasy (film) Comedy drama (film) Fantasy Comedy drama

Language

English

Time

2003 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Big Fish. Directed by Tim Burton, Columbia Pictures/Jinks/Cohen Company/The Zanuck Company, 2003.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

G.K. Chesterton

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Topic

Literature Fiction Stories

Author

G.K. Chesterton

Source

A Defense of Penny-Dreadfuls The Defendant

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1901 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Chesterton, G.K. "The Defendant." The Wit, Whimsy and Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton. Vol. 6, Coachwhip Publications, 2009. Originally published by R. Brinley Johnson, 1901.

When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

Raymond Chandler

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Topic

Stories Plot Writing

Author

Raymond Chandler

Medium

Essay

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

1950 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Chandler, Raymond. "The Simple Art of Murder." Saturday Review of Literature, 15 Apr. 1950, introduction.

How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.

Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending

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Topic

Stories

Author

Julian Barnes

Source

The Sense of an Ending

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

2011 2010s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Jonathan Cape/Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, ch. 2.

No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning. For every constitution, there is an epic, for each decalogue a scripture. Once understood in the context of the narratives that give it meaning, law becomes not merely a system of rules to be observed, but a world in which we live.

Robert M. Cover

Nomos and Narrative

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Topic

Stories Law

Author

Robert M. Cover

Source

Nomos and Narrative Harvard Law Review

Genre

Legal writing

Language

English

Time

1983 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Cover, Robert M. "Foreword: Nomos and Narrative." Harvard Law Review, Nov. 1983. Originally a foreword to the Supreme Court 1982 term.

I never feel spiritual anywhere except in the presence of my own stories.

Sherman Alexie

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Topic

Spirituality Stories

Speaker

Sherman Alexie

Source

Crossroads: The Journal of the Poetry Society of America

Medium

Interview

Language

English

Time

2004 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Alexie, Sherman. Interviewed by Diane Thiel. Crossroads: The Journal of the Poetry Society of America, Spring 2004.

I cannot tell my story without reaching a long way back.

Hermann Hesse

Demian

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Topic

Effects of the past Stories The past

Author

Hermann Hesse

Source

Demian

Medium

Novel

Genre

Coming of age story

Language

German

Time

1919 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hesse, Herman. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend [Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth]. Fischer Verlag, 1919.

Current Citation

Hesse, Herman. Demian, translated by Damion Searls. Penguin Classics, 2013.