Best Storytelling Quotes & Sayings

As I quietly stare off into space, eyes glazed over and brow thoughtfully taut, know that I am going about my business. I am a storyteller. Daydreaming is the best part of my job. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Storytelling is the difference between solving a problem and creating a cause. Lists solve a problem: Here's an issue we face, let's create a pro and con list about how to solve it and then pick the best option. A cause is something that ignites people and unites people. That is what a good story does: It creates a cause. — Jeanne Liedtka

You're a storyteller. Dream up something wild and improbable," she pleaded. "Something beautiful and full of monsters."

"Beautiful and full of monsters?"

"All the best stories are. — Laini Taylor

Storytelling is how we survive, when there's no feed, the story feeds something, it feeds the spirit, the imagination. I can't imagine life without stories, stories from my parents, my culture. Stories from other people's parents, their culture. That's how we learn from each other, it's the best way. That's why literature is so important, it connects us heart to heart. — Alice Walker

We actually try our best to be non-biased, but for me, that was the best movie ["Sicario"], filmmaking-wise and storytelling-wise, and connected to me the most. I thought it was great. — John Krasinski

Be your best company. — A.D. Posey

We learn best - and change - from hearing stories that strike a chord within us. — John P. Kotter

ANYTHING IN THIS UNIVERSE CAN BE A STORY WORTH TELLING, AS LONG AS YOU KNOW HOW TO BEST TELL IT. — Film Crit Hulk!

What tale do you like best to hear?' 'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme - courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe - marriage. — Charlotte Bronte

Theatre, when it is at its best, takes a lot of beating - the live experience and the shared collective experience of live storytelling is really special when it is good. Particularly here in New York because the audiences are amazing, very vocal and very engaged, and that makes theatre very exciting. — Dan Stevens

The best philosophy was wrapped up in history. It was, in effect, storytelling from a particular era. The worst was the pure sort. University stuff. — Andrew Miller

The best memoirs - like This Boy's Life, or Crazy Brave [by Joy Harjo], for instance - bring you through a private river of storytelling that joins a major ocean of human struggle and joy. The act of enunciation - the forms and strategies of storytelling - are every bit as literarily serious as they are in poetry or other prose forms. — Lidia Yuknavitch

In the end, it wasn't so much that there was an alternative narrative
there always was
but it came down to belief: Which one did you want to believe. Which one suited you best? Or, perhaps more to the point: Which one told the story you were already telling yourself? — Michael Paterniti

If I am a fan of my own music, which I am, I want to hear the best Madchild I can hear. What am I missing? I sort of had a good talk with some close friends of mine that I really respect and look up to in music as well and we all just came to the conclusion, just some more storytelling songs of things I have gone through. — Shane Bunting

In a weird way, I think I'm much better at oneshots than longform. So I try to focus on five or six-issue arcs. I have a real fondness for the one-shots because that's where I do my best storytelling. — Kelly Sue DeConnick

There's a social and human necessity for some kind of continuity, but it's not axiomatic and not something you're born into; it's something you have to work at. And one of the ways to work at it - perhaps the best - is storytelling: telling stories about yourself to others, telling stories about yourself to yourself, telling stories about others to others. — Aleksandar Hemon

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven. — Stephen King

I think the idea that television has evolved to this place of real thematic richness and the fact that you no longer have to get 10 million people to watch your show in order to propagate its survival are the best things that have ever happened to storytelling in this medium. — Damon Lindelof

It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not interested enough in other people and the ordinary doings of people. That is why the real historians of Africa had always been the grandmothers, who remembered the lineage and the stories that went with it. — Alexander McCall Smith

I spent my childhood watching every scary movie that Hollywood ever made. And I think that gave me the best education for storytelling. It also made me want to reproduce the scary moments that I felt, sitting in a theater at the age of 5. — Tess Gerritsen

All the collaborators of storytelling, in film and television, have to be partly self-centered because they need to do their work the best they can, and that's what makes them really good at what they do, but then they also have to be a part of the socialist society, for the greater good. — Ray McKinnon

Be your best gift. — A.D. Posey

Magician is the best storyteller in the world. — Amit Kalantri

You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table. — C.S. Lewis

The stories that contain badness are not bad stories. Rather, they are among some of the best. Because the storyteller who loves the children and gives the whole of his or her self to them by means of the tale - inviting at the same time the whole of the children's selves - is of all people the best able to confront true and truly terrible things with the children. — Walter Wangerin Jr.

Tightly-plotted, well-researched and beautifully drawn, this book is a real delight. Garen Ewing's mix of engaging characters, exciting old-school adventure, attractive ligne claire artwork and fluid storytelling makes The Rainbow Orchid easily one of the best graphic novels of the year. — Bryan Talbot

Every age has its storytelling form, and video gaming is a huge part of our culture. You can ignore or embrace video games and imbue them with the best artistic quality. People are enthralled with video games in the same way as other people love the cinema or theatre. — Andy Serkis

Descriptions of dreams have a dubious place in storytelling. For these are dreams which have been imagined--'dreamed up', to be slotted in. A story can be made up. How can a dream be made up? By not rising of its own free will from the unconscious it sets a note of falsity, merely illustrating something 'dream-like', which may be why dream descriptions within stories seen curiously meaningless. To avoid glazing over, best then to turn the page quickly. — Murray Bail

The best stories are like the best burgers: big, juicy, and messy. — A.D. Posey

The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea. — Kenneth Grahame

It's all about this abstract entity called the story. It's all about the best way to tell the story, and to make a movie about the issues that this story is about. Filmmaking is storytelling, for me. — Jose Padilha

I know you've all heard the advice, "Show, don't tell." The best writers don't tell you, and quite frankly they don't just show you
they make you feel it, live it, taste it, touch it. Storytelling is about being in the moment with the characters. — Josh Lanyon

Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture. — Erwin Raphael McManus

Like many men who experience fatherhood relatively late in life, Martin Luther was a devoted parent. Luther wrote his children letters of touching intensity, patiently converting the joys of the Christian life into a language of storytelling fit for the very young. A home with children brought out the best in Luther in a way that theological disputation patently did not. — Andrew Pettegree

Your first film is always your best film, in a way. There's something about your first film that you never ever get back to, but you should always try. It's that slight sense of not knowing what you're doing, because the technical skills you learn - especially if you have a film that works, that has some kind of success - are beguiling. The temptation is to use them again, and they're not necessarily good storytelling techniques. — Danny Boyle

Political thriller? International thriller? Financial thriller? Whatever you call it, The Ascendant is smart, edgy, fast-paced storytelling at its best. Its unlikely hero, Garrett Reilly, reminded me of a young Jack Reacher as a tech-sa What I said: Political thriller? International thriller? Financial thriller? Whatever you call it, The Ascendant is smart, edgy, fast-paced storytelling at its best. Its unlikely hero, Garrett Reilly, reminded me of a young Jack Reacher as a tech-savvy bond analyst. Drew Chapman is a debut novelist to watch. — Alafair Burke

Much as my Boomer friends will hate me for saying this, Kanye West is the New Dylan. Not only do Kanye's best lyrics match Dylan's prescience, highly inventive word-play and genius for storytelling, his indefatigable cockiness eerily channels Muhammad Ali. — Dan Hill

The best stories proceed from a mysterious truth-seeking impulse that narrative has when revised extensively; they are complex and baffling and ambiguous; they tend to make us slower to act, rather than quicker. They make us more humble, cause us to empathize with people we don't know, because they help us imagine these people, and when we imagine them - if the storytelling is good enough - we imagine them as being, essentially, like us. If the story is poor, or has an agenda, if it comes out of a paucity of imagination or is rushed, we imagine those other people as essentially unlike us: unknowable, inscrutable, incontrovertible. — George Saunders

I just feel that God gave me a certain gift, and that was to go out, do storytelling and be an actor. And my responsibility with that gift is to do the best job possible and to re-create real life. — Eric Close

Be the best you. — A.D. Posey

I see rock music as the best example of modernday storytelling that exists in our society. Songs are narratives that help the listeners cope with the reality of life that can't be easily spoken about in everyday conversation. It is a hugely powerful process of helping people find themselves through music. — Stephan Jenkins

Blending consensus historical events and personages with imaginary occult forces is a strong recipe for counterfactual storytelling goodness that combines the best of two worlds: resonant history with wild-eyed fantasy. — Paul Di Filippo

Fantasy is, at its best, the purest access to storytelling that we have. It universalizes a tale, it evokes wonder and timeless narrative power, it touches upon inner journeys, it illuminates our collective and individual pasts, throws a focus beam on the present day, and presages the dangers and promises of the future. — Guy Gavriel Kay

The best writing is embarrassing; that's all there is to it. — A.D. Posey

You can put the camera in places where you may not necessarily be able to put it there if I don't do the stunt. If it's character and it's storytelling, then we do it. We design the things around me. I don't do it just to do a stunt. It's storytelling for me and how I can best bring the audience into the action, bring the audience into the story. And that's how we always look at at. — Tom Cruise

In the best of all possible worlds, directors would obsess about the quality of their storytelling, and not the details of their technical methods. — Roger Ebert

I still very much appreciate the storytelling of the best rappers. — Alex Turner

Statements make sense for somebody who needs advice. I'm not giving advice. I don't instruct. At my best, I delight. That's my job. — Ron Koertge

I've always thought of the western as American storytelling at its best. — Kiefer Sutherland

Who makes things up? Who tells the real story? We all turn our lives into stories. It is a defining characteristic of our species. We retell our experiences. We quickly learn what parts are interesting to our listeners and what parts lag, and we shape our narratives accordingly. It doesn't mean we aren't telling the truth; we've simply learned which parts to leave out. Every time we tell the story again, we don't go back to the original event and start from scratch, we go back to the last time we told the story. It's the story we shape and improve on, we don't change what happened. This is also a way we have of protecting ourselves. It would be too painful to relive a childhood illness or the death of your best friend every time you had to speak of it. By telling the story from the story, instead of from the actual events, we are able to distance ourselves from our suffering. It also gives us the chance to make the story something people can hear. — Ann Patchett

Storytelling began as a way for humans to relay information, from where to find food sources to the benefits of familial bonding, because fictional stories were the easiest way to memorize and communicate a complete set of information. We remember information best when it is delivered in the form of a plot, which is called 'semantic memory.' Stories still serve a definitive purpose and the stronger the purpose, the clearer the story.

Fire Up Your Writing Brain — Susan Reynolds

Human beings across every culture I know about require such stories, stories with cool winds and wood smoke. They speak to something deep within us, the capacity to conceptualize, objectify and find patterns, thereby to create the flow of events and perceptions that find perfect expression in fiction. We are built this way, we create stories by reflex, unstoppably. But this elegant system really works best when the elements of the emerging story, whether is is being written or being read, are taken as literal fact. Almost always, to respond to the particulars of the fantastic as if they were metaphorical or allegorical is to drain them of vitality. — Peter Straub