A Boring Story Quotes & Sayings

It is the importance of this quality of generosity in fiction that requires a measure of childishness in the writer. People who have strong mental focus and a sense of purpose in their lives, people who have respect for all that grownups generally respect (earning a good living, the flag, the school system, those who are richer than oneself, those who are beloved and famous, such as movie stars), are unlikely ever to make it through the many revisions it takes to tell a story beautifully, without visible tricks, nor would they be able to tolerate the fame and fortune of those who tell stories stupidly, with hundreds of tricks, all of them old and boring to the discriminating mind. First, with his stubborn churlishness the good writer scoffs at what the grownups are praising, then, with his childish forgetfulness and indifference to what sensible people think, he goes back to his foolish pastime, the making of real art. — John Gardner

When you're putting together a story, sometimes you just have to skip over the boring bits. — Laurie R. King

My writing could be the most beautiful or important piece of prose, but it means nothing if it's boring, if people aren't listening or reading. I think transporting someone, putting them in a story for a few hours, taking them out of their worlds, is what I always strive to do. — Victoria Aveyard

Their story isn't a fairytale, but that's okay, because fairytales are predictible, and sometimes boring. — Lindy Zart

Pixie herself was too little to tell a proper story. She just said a whole jumble of stuff: 'Pixie did dancing, then Pixie did singing, then Pixie ate lots and lots of ice cream,' droning on and on about herself. 'Pixie did telling stories and she was boring,' said Baxter unkindly. — Jacqueline Wilson

Mostly I sat down and said, 'I'm not going to write a boring story.' And that actually, surprisingly, solves most of your problems. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Most people are just too self-absorbed, well-meaning, and lazy to bother orchestrating Machiavellian plans to slight or insult us. It's more often a boring, complicated story of wrong assumptions, miscommunication, bad administration, and cover-ups - people trying, and mostly failing, to do the right thing, hurting each other not because that's their intention but because it's impossible to avoid. — Tim Kreider

Actually, the true story of a person's life can never be written. It is beyond the power of literature. The full tale of any life would be both utterly boring and utterly unbelievable. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

When dawn comes I'm sitting in bed with my arms around my knees and, since I have nothing to do, am trying to know myself. "Know yourself"
what splendid and useful advice; too bad the ancients never thought of showing how to use this advice. — Anton Chekhov

A good story needs conflict, and virtual reality is a great hypothetical way to create conflict ... In some ways, the future is going to be more boring than we think. — Palmer Luckey

A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing. — George Lucas

Since a good part of my life has been wasted dealing with fools just like them, it's not worry I feel but weariness as I watch the approach of one more episode in the old, tired story of men who try to beat life, the smart ones who think they know it all and die with a look of surprise on their faces: at the final moment they always see the truth - they never really understood anything, never held anything in their hands. An old story, old and boring. — Alvaro Mutis

I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go to a therapist, even though I always set a trap: during my meditation I invent stories to keep from being bored, and in therapy I invent stories to keep from boring the psychologist. — Isabel Allende

I like stories"
He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her. "What sort of stories?"
"Stories with magic and intrigue. Tragedy. And Love."
"Ah yes...love. You can't have a story without love."
Joanna giggled and nodded, relaxing. "Well, you can have a boring story without love — Delilah Dove

YOU! You're boring! You're not even good enough for a good insult! You're in the one place Where magic is always real! Part the seas if you want! Rain down ink and blood! Transform! Fly! You're not allowed to spend the rest of your life panicking! You've got to give something back if you want to get out of here!"
What? What?? What do I give?"
You've got stories in there, I know, I can smell 'em
"
Stoppit, stoppit! I don't! I can't tell a story to save my life!"
Funny you should put it that way. — Carla Speed McNeil

But really, that is kind of silly,' Abigail tried to explain. 'I mean, a book is much less personal than a programmed screen that can respond to you according to your needs, and concentrate on what's hard for you, and go fast on what's easy. A book stays the same no matter *who's* reading it. And anyway, I don't see how anyone could read a whole long book, it must be so boring!'

'But...but it wasn't,' Peter said faintly. 'I...almost forgot I was reading it. The...the whole story was going on in my head.'

'I still don't understand,' said Oliver. 'I mean, watching a real-life hologram right before your eyes is better than anything you could *imagine.* — William Sleator

There's a story everywhere. Being bored to death someplace is basically a funny proposition. What you have to watch out for is you don't write a boring story about a boring place. — Tim Cahill

Mockumentary formats are great for a couple of things. One of them is delivering the toughest part of any sitcom episode, what writers call "pipe" - the nuts and bolts of the story where you explain what's happening, the boring plot stuff. — Michael Schur

If you're a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong, that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring. — David Halberstam

I choose to write because it's perfect for me. It's an escape, a place I can go to hide. It's a friend, when I feel out casted from everyone else. It's a journal, when the only story I can tell is my own. It's a book, when I need to be somewhere else. It's control, when I feel so out of control. It's healing, when everything seems pretty messed up.
And it's fun, when life is just flat-out boring. — Alysha Speer

It does not bother me that some say I'm dull and boring because the people that do know me will tell you a different story. It is very difficult to be open with people you don't know. There is nothing I can do about the fact that the real me does not get across and it is probably difficult to know the real me. — Alan Shearer

Martin is always telling me to put all of this behind me, to get on with my life. But the thing is, before Jesse, I never really had a life. I had a routine. I did things. But aside from the accident" - he gestured with his prosthetic arm - "nothing ever happened to me. But she happened. And it was like a train wreck. It was big and painful and beautiful and every second mattered. You know what Beaudelaire said about love? It's 'an oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.' But it's still an oasis. Our time together - that's the story of my life. Everything before her was just the boring setup. Like the first hour of a miniseries, the part that's just padding to stretch it out for three nights. And the time since she's gone - that's just been some sort of weird, dragged-out anticlimax. I can feel myself sitting in the audience watching my life and wondering, 'Why isn't this movie over? — Phoef Sutton

I love the rabbit hole. I spend a lot of time looking at images, Google mapping, etc. I also love to read court transcripts, FBI files, stuff like that. You go through vast, boring stretches, but the voices are always so fascinating and slowly a story begins to emerge. It's very much like playing detective. — Zachary Lazar

We've had 20 years of mass murders throughout which I have repeatedly told CNN and our other media, if you don't want to propagate more mass murders, don't start the story with sirens blaring. Don't have photographs of the killer. Don't make this 24/7 coverage. Do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story, not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero. Do localize the story to the affected community and make it as boring as possible in every other market. Because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder, we expect to see one or two more within a week. — Park Dietz

I do not mean to be the slightest bit critical of TV newspeople, who do a superb job, considering that they operate under severe time constraints and have the intellectual depth of hamsters. But TV news can only present the "bare bones" of a story; it takes a newspaper, with its capability to present vast amounts of information, to render the story truly boring. — Dave Barry

'The Daily Mail' interviewed my friends in Jamaica to find out if I was ever the victim of a vicious homophobic attack because, to them, I'm a gay refugee. But nothing like that happened. So, no surprise, that story didn't appear. I'm really pretty boring. — Marlon James

Hi, my name is Tess Embers.
A lot of thoughts are probably running through your mind right now. Who does this person think she is? Doesn't she know that you should never begin a story with a boring phrase like,'Hi, my name is...'? Doesn't she know to use a hook at the beginning to draw readers in instead of pushing them away?
Well, sorry, but I'm just a teenage girl and I don't necessarily want everyone to know everything about my life. Maybe I don't want to hook people. — Embee

I hate outlines. I have a broad sense of where the story is going; I know the end, I know the end of the principal characters, and I know the major turning points and events from the books, the climaxes for each book, but I don't necessarily know each twist and turn along the way. That's something I discover in the course of writing and that's what makes writing enjoyable. I think if I outlined comprehensively and stuck to the outline the actual writing would be boring. — George R R Martin

I had sort of had a 21st birthday when I was 17, 18 years old living in Japan. I had all of that stuff sort of happen earlier for me, which happens to a lot of people. My 21st birthday was just a little boring. Not a great story. — Sarah Wright

The only thing I shy away from is non-consensual violence. I can't write a story where someone is a simple victim because it's boring. — Chuck Palahniuk

Storytelling is how history is passed. It's what our ancestors did, it's what everybody's done. It has to come back into a story because otherwise, it's stuck in this book and it's boring and it's academic and I'm not against intelligence and I'm not against education, I don't want to be misunderstood, but we have tell the stories to our young people a little bit early and history gives us a lot of things. — Nikki Giovanni

Nora, I believe life's like a good book. Time makes up the pages that will be your story. Every time your life changes, you start a new chapter. To me, there's nothing more depressing than someone getting to the end of their days and realizing they've only written one long, boring passage. — Elizabeth Isaacs

I love the idea of things being strict and things being uniform. That's the reason why I surround each collection with humor or irony. I want to make sure that it's not too serious and that there is some element that throws it off because otherwise that would make it really boring. There's always a story that's somewhat fantastical. — Thom Browne

Elmore Leonard famously said that a story is real life with the boring parts left out. — Lisa Cron

I like writing that puts the needle right into the vein. I don't think, when I'm writing, "Tell a good story" or "find a meaning." I'm thinking phrase by phrase, make it tight, make it good. Get the idea out in language I can bear. I think there's something musical about being impatient with boring sentences - it's not that I don't have boring sentences, God knows I do, but I'm impatient with them. — Maggie Nelson

I have no problem with being fabulous. My problem comes when you won't allow yourself to be an ordinary woman with a decent apartment and an okay job. When only the mom is allowed to be boring - because her life is so rich with meaning.

When I carefully choreographed the story of how amazing I was, I was acting like one of those helicopter parents - you know, the ones who refuse to admit that their Jackson might suck at math or Stella might not be the world's greatest violinist. 'You are special! You are special!' they cry to their children, hoping this will boost their confidence. But the real message is one of panic: You must be special. Ordinary is not okay. When I walked into a party projecting the Shiny Girl - she of the lighthearted flings and glitzy job - I was essentially doing the same thing. — Sara Eckel

I really haven't had that exciting of a life. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life. So I pretty much like to make it up. I'd rather tell a story about somebody else. — Kurt Cobain

The problem with dragons is that everyone uses them. All the time. When that happens, they become commonplace. A lot of people think you can just throw them into a story and suddenly whatever you're writing is 28% cooler. But that doesn't work. All that does is make dragons into some boring cliche. — Patrick Rothfuss

If/when I die, do not want Pam lonely. Want her to remarry, have full life. As long as new husband is nice guy. Gentle guy. Religious guy. Very caring + good to kids. But kids not fooled. Kids prefer dead dad (i.e., me) to religious guy. Pale, boring, religious guy, with no oomph, who wears weird sweaters and is always a little sad, due to, cannot get boner, due to physical ailment.
Ha ha.
Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like.
Note to self: try harder, in all things, to be better person. — George Saunders

We're at maybe 1% of what is possible. Despite the faster change, we're still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. I think a lot of that is because of the negativity ... Every story I read is Google vs someone else. That's boring. We should be focusing on building the things that don't exist. — Larry Page

Same old boring boring story America can't stop telling itself. What is this sicko fascination? Every book and movie practically has to have a little, right? But why do you think all those runaways are on the streets tearing up their veins with junk and selling themselves so they can sleep in the gutter? What do you think the alternative was at home? — Francesca Lia Block

Life, like any other exciting story, is bound to have painful and scary parts, boring and depressing parts, but it's a brilliant story, and it's up to us how it will turn out in the end. — Bo Lozoff

There are a few writers whose lives and personalities are so large, so fascinating, that there's no such thing as a boring biography of them - you can read every new one that comes along, good or bad, and be caught up in the story all over again. — Robert Gottlieb

You know how the best story angles often spring from that thought you have on reading an article or watching a show - that thought you have before the responsible journalist in you comes up with something boring. I usually recommend people get in touch with their deep 'reptilian brain.' — Nick Denton

It's a dreadfully long monster of a book, and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent - no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors - whom I've never heard of - have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish. — Robert Shea

I'm just an entertainer. In a way crime stories are boring. A crime's been committed and at the end you know it will be solved. So you've got to make the story interesting besides it just being a plot. And that's why character matters, why you've got to make the characters interesting. — Jo Nesbo

In my opinion, visual effects are great when it compliments a good story, and action is great when it compliments a good story, but just to have them for the sake of having them, it gets a little boring, especially if you're talking a TV series. At least with a movie that's an hour and a half to two hours, you see it and you're impressed, and then you're out. With a series, if it's only that, week after week after week, there's nothing there to bring you back. You have to get invested in the characters and care about them and want to follow them. — Drew Roy

A good story will keep you wondering about what's happening, what's going on, where does this go? Now it's going to go that way, now it's going to go that way. It has to do that. If it's predictable, it's just boring. — Fede Alvarez

Nothing to say. I used to be a ghostwriter for a publisher.'
'Medieval stuff?'
'Eighty-page love stories. You have this guy, untrustworthy but good in bed, and this girl, radiant but innocent. In the end they fall madly in love and it's incredibly boring. The story doesn't say when they split up.'
'Of course not,' said Mathias — Fred Vargas

Everyone always talks about the magic of books being able to take you to other places, to let you see exotic worlds, to make you experience new and interesting things. Well, do you think words alone can do this? Of course not! If you've ever thought that books are boring, it's because you don't know how to read them correctly. From now on, when you read a book, I want you to scream the words of the novel out loud while reading them, then do exactly what the characters are doing in the story. Trust me, it will make books way more exciting. Even dictionaries. Particularly dictionaries. — Brandon Sanderson

Tell me a story, Wilson. It can even be a long, boring, dusty English tome."
"Wow! Tome. Learn a new word, Echohawk?" Wilson wrapped his arms around me as I sagged against him.
"I think you taught me that one, Mr. Dictionary." I tried not to whimper as the pain swept through me.
"How about Lord of the Flies?"
"How about you just kill me now?" I ground out, my teeth gritted against the onslaught, appreciative of Wilson's diversionary tactics if not his choice in stories.
Wilson's laughter made his chest rumble against my cheek. "Hmm. Too realistic and depressing, right? Let's see . . . dusty tomes . . . how about Ivanhoe?"
"Ivan's Ho'? Sounds like Russian p**n ," I quipped tiredly. Wilson laughed again, a sputtering groan. He was practically carrying me at this point and looked almost as exhausted as I felt.
"How about I tell you one — Amy Harmon

At least I'm not afraid, and no one will ever call me boring. — A.D. Posey

I feel that we, as Indians, have a knack for loving a stereotypical, sobbing, sympathy-seeking personality. I feel that we need to promote quirky, cool and youthful talent. We have to stop propagating the sob-story angle of celebs, where they try to be larger-than-life. That is very outdated. It is so boring that it puts you to sleep. — Kangana Ranaut

I know it's such a boring interview sometimes with us at 'American Horror Story', but I just can't say a word. I would certainly love to be back, that's for sure. It's such a great job. — Lily Rabe

I've never dreamed of a story idea. I have such boring dreams. — R.L. Stine

The truth is no excuse for a boring story". — Michael Dorn

I'm a liar, but an honest one. People reproach me for not always telling the same story in the same way. But this happens because I've invented the whole tale from the start and it seems boring to me and unkind to other people to repeat myself. — Federico Fellini

I glare at him and sigh. "Don't you understand what a book is?"
"Obviously."
"Then how can it be boring? It's not just twenty-six little letters all mushed together to make words that link together to tell a story. It's the creation of another world where anything can happen and anyone can be whoever they want to be. It's a crazy, special kind of magic that can transport you out of the real world, to anywhere you want to go. It doesn't matter if it's a made-up universe or it's written in a city you can drive to within an hour. It's what happens within the pages that makes reading so...not boring."

-Emma Hart "Dirty Little Rendezvous (The Burke Brothers Spin-Off #1). — Emma Hart

Everybody, every single person, has a story to tell. Every single ordinary person has an extraordinary story. We might all think that we are unremarkable, that our lives are boring, just because we aren't doing ground-breaking things or making headlines or winning awards. But the truth is we all do something that is fascinating, that is brave, that is something we should proud of. — Cecelia Ahern

When a writer develops a story, he is confronted with a poison that is inside him. If you don't have that poison, your story will be boring and uninspired. It's like fugu: The flesh of the pufferfish is extremely tasty, but the roe, the liver, the heart can be lethally toxic. My stories are located in a dark, dangerous part of my consciousness, I feel the poison in my mind, but I can fend off a high dose of it because I have a strong body. When you are young, you are strong; so you can usually conquer the poison even without being in training. But beyond the age of 40 your strength wanes, you can no longer cope with the poison if you lead an unhealthy life. — Haruki Murakami

It used to be that you needed a $500-million-a-year company in order to reach a worldwide audience of consumers. Now, all you need is a Steam account. That changes a whole bunch of stuff. It's kind of a boring 'gee, information processing changes a stuff' story, but it's going to have an impact on every single company. — Gabe Newell

The Sublime. The almost tangible, entirely believable, mathematically verifiable nirvana just a few right-angle turns away from dear boring old reality: a vast, infinite, better-than-virtual ultra-existence with no Off switch, to which species and civilizations had been hauling their sorry tired-with-it-all behinds off to since - the story went - the galaxy had still been in metaphorical knee socks. — Iain M. Banks

If I want a long boring story with no point to it, I have my life. — Jerry Seinfeld

It was a hideous ancient thing that stood on tiger feet in the middle of the floor. Like a showpiece. And he did enjoy showing it. He would bring his friends upstairs to the master bathroom so that they could admire the monstrosity while he told them the whole long boring story of how he'd gotten it at an estate sale in Hollywood. Some bimbo actress from the silent-screen days had supposedly slit her wrists while she was in the thing. 'Cashed in her chips,' Harold liked to say. 'In this very tub. — Richard Laymon

Sometimes, when I read, it's not just fiction while I'm between the pages. It's real. My heart races when they kiss, and I get shocked when they do dumb stuff. I yell at their bad choices and the bad guys, and sometimes, I even cry. If a book can elicit such real emotion from somebody, if a story can be so powerful you feel everything the characters are feeling, then reading can't ever be boring. — Emma Hart

Please tell me you did not bring me out here so you could tell me a very boring story about your sister. — Cassandra Clare

The White Mansion isn't boring, lass. Never boring. It's the grand demesne the Unseelie King built for his concubine. It's a living, breathing love story, testament to the brightest passion that ever burned between our races. You can follow the scenes through if you've time enough and are willing to risk getting lost for a few centuries. — Karen Marie Moning

The only advantage of the CD is that you have a booklet that can tell a bit of a story, but the little covers are just boring. I love vinyl, and I have loads of it. It's the same thing as digital photography versus film photography. It's a quality thing. — Anton Corbijn

When you're a cat, most of the time you're thinking about cat things. Little movements in the grass, cupboards that aren't quite closed, patches of sunlight on rocks, narrow places at the backs of closets - you're always noticing those things. You can't help yourself. It's boring if you think about it, but you don't think about it because you're a cat. ... sometimes you know what people want. You don't always care; but you know what they want. — Kristin Kladstrup

In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling. — Stephen King