Favorite Story Quotes & Sayings

As I sit here in my favorite chair, I'm reminded of a story that my father shared with me when I was a young boy. He said that a chicken and a hog were having conversation about breakfast.
The chicken was complaining because it must produce eggs for the farmer so that he can have eggs for breakfast, and the hog replied with tears in his eyes, that may be true, but I must give up my life so that he can have bacon.
My question to you is, what has someone given you in order for you to eat, and what are you willing to give up so that someone else may eat at the table of life? — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

My favorite micro-short story is by Ernest Hemingway:

For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn. — G.M. Potter

If I show consideration for others," Lillian Lynburn said grumpily, "will you tell me again about how you shot my husband?"
Jon rolled his eyes. "Yes, Leigh, if you manage to approximate human behavior for half an hour, I will tell you your favorite story again. — Sarah Rees Brennan

You know, I've always wrote my best stuff when it takes me hardly any time at all. Actually I wrote ... this is actually a really funny story ... 'Ghost Of Vincent Price', I've been wanting to write a song about Vincent Price coz he's one of my favorite characters of all time. — Wednesday 13

I read about a John Shelby of Thackham, England, who in 1672 was thrown from his horse into a thicket where he found an iron pot containing more than five hundred gold coins. According to the treasure trove laws of England, all hidden or lost property belonged to the Crown. However, Shelby refused to give the gold to the king's officers, and he was arrested, tried for treason, and beheaded. This was probably a favorite story of the IRS. — Nelson DeMille

My favorite things often have a story behind them and are usually handmade or discovered at a flea market. — Amy Sedaris

I've seen everything from 'Wicked' to 'The Book Of Mormon,' and I don't make any bones of the fact that I love both. But 'Les Mis' is not only my favorite musical, but it's also my favorite story. I love the book, which I read as a kid, and I identified so much with Jean Valjean. — Corey Taylor

But to make a long story short, I decided that I was going to run, and I announced that I was going to run for president in Florida, I would be the favorite son from Florida, and that would stop Johnson and Kennedy from dividing up the state. — George Smathers

Rwandans have a funny relationship with God, which they convey through a story that anyone can tell you: "God worked very hard for six days creating the heavens and the earth. But on the seventh day, he needed a break, so he picked Rwanda as the place to take a much needed sleep. God sleeps in Rwanda, then keeps busy at work everywhere else."
This story has two meanings: The negative take is that God is not in Rwanda to protect you or answer your prayers, that He comes here only to shut His eyes. The other interpretation of "God sleeps in Rwanda" is that the country is a mile up, cooler and more beautiful than any other place, and so, naturally, this would be where God comes when He is not punching the clock. His favorite place. It was the second interpretation that we needed to believe. — Josh Ruxin

But Ship Who Sang remains my favorite story. I really rocked folks with that and still cannot read it aloud myself without weeping at the end. — Anne McCaffrey

Grip's favorite painting didn't contain a single figure. 'Seven A.M.' showed distant trees on one side, and on the other a storefront that time had passed by. So still. Some kind of story could probably be told, but one refrained from asking questions. The light and shadows convinced the viewer to exist in the moment. Hopper had drawn sharp lines where the sun cast shadows on the white walls inside the window, while outside the ground gleamed like warm sand. The hands of an old wall clock suggested that the time was seven. Someone who should have been there was somewhere else. Yet nothing was missing. With the morning light streaming down on the ground and in through the window, time might as well have stopped - so the clock always stood at seven.
Just like that, a place where nothing ever changes. — Robert Karjel

When I was a kid, my favorite movies were the George Pal version of 'War Of The Worlds,' 'Them,' and 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers.' Those movies were scary! They haunted my nightmares for years, so when I started writing, I wanted to write a story that was just as big and just as scary. — David Gerrold

The Christmas story has such power and such appeal every year. There are other stories we get tired of. You think of your favorite movie; you don't want to watch it 15 times. — Frederica Mathewes-Green

Songs are like children. They are all special to me - you can't just pick a favorite. Of course, 'Lucky Man' was a special tune with a wonderful story behind it. They have all done different things. — Greg Lake

I always used to watch 'Labyrinth' and 'The Neverending Story.' Those were like my two favorite movies that I would watch over and over and over again. — Vanessa Hudgens

I learned to tell stories from my mom. "Your dad's not feeling well today," she'd say. I had an accident. She'd say, Remember what happened. You're a clumsy girl. You walk into a door. You tripped and stumbled down a staircase. My favorite story: He doesn't mean to.
She was so good at telling stories that I started to believe them after a while. Maybe I was clumsy. Maybe it was my fault for provoking him.
Maybe he didn't really mean to. — Lauren Oliver

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever. — Irwin Shaw

Etta James is my all-time favorite singer. I've said it in every interview, in every story, in every on- and off-camera question. That music was always such a huge escape for me, even from a young age. — Christina Aguilera

Sendak's 1963 classic 'Where The Wild Things Are' has long been a favorite of mine because of the creative imagery, fantastic adventures and, most of all, because of how this timeless story shows us that children need to be free to roam, explore and invent in order to understand their place in the world that surrounds them. — Darell Hammond

I'm a huge fan of Jessica Lange and 'American Horror Story.' I would love to work with her. She's been one of my favorite actresses for a while. — Anna Camp

Lore is my favorite kind of story. Because it's not only historical, it's a lie everyone knows is a lie but tells anyway. I love that. Of course every story I tell is true. Completely true. Completely and utterly at least five-eighths of the way to being true, which is truer than any piece of lore and truer than most truths you'll hear. — Kevin Sampsell

Probably my favorite job that I've ever had and probably will have - although I'm reserving judgment on Manhattan Love Story, Tuesday nights at 8:30 on ABC, because it's pretty fun so far - is Psych, which I did for four or five years. — Kurt Fuller

The official line is that, after the war, women couldn't wait to leave the offices and assembly lines and government agencies. But the real story was that the economy couldn't have men coming home without women going home, not unless it wanted a lot of unemployed vets. So the problem became unemployed women. "How you gonna keep us down on the farm after we've seen the world,"' she ad-libs to the old World War I tune. 'Enter the women's magazines, and cookbook publishers, and all these advertising agencies carrying on about the scourge of germs in the toilet bowl, and scuffs on the kitchen floor, and, my favorite, house B.O. Enter chicken hash that takes two and a half hours to prepare. I can just hear them sitting around the conference tables. 'That'll keep the gals out of trouble. — Ellen Feldman

And so many of the indies have partnered with Google to sell ebooks right from their own websites. These stores are embracing the "new technology" instead of hiding from it, because they realize it's about the story, not the ink on paper. If you want ebooks, your local indie can sell you ebooks. If your local independent is hanging up posters saying that ebooks will kill everything, you should tag that bookstore as a favorite in your GPS doohickey. You'll get great deals, because that store will have a going-out-of-business sale soon. Yes, even though you try to save it with a letter-writing campaign. — Steve Weddle

This is my favorite part. It starts and ends here. The pebbles shine, the plan worked, Hansel Triumphant. Lesson number one: be sneaky and have a plan. But the stupid boy goes back, makes the rest of the story postscript and aftermath. He shouldn't have gone back. And this is the second lesson I took from the story: when someone is trying to ditch you, kill you, never go back. — Richard Siken

I really like Septimus Heap. he is my favorite guy in the story. I should make you all read it. — Angie Sage

She ate toast in bed, then reread a favorite book, taking comfort from a story where she knew the outcome would be good and just and right. — Sarah Mayberry

My favorite composers are the ones that tell the story. I love Wagner. I love Mahler. Prokofiev. The programmatic music. I listen more to classic rock because I don't like the contemporary music very much. — Patti LuPone

For the soul-wounded woman. Your healed voice is my favorite sound. Your hurts, they walk right into our hearts; but your story of healing
that can change lives. Never be afraid to find and use your voice. — Jo Ann Fore

One of my favorite authors, Garbrielle Zevin, she did a book called 'Elsewhere,' that is one of my favorites, and I think they're making that into a movie too. I really want to be in that one just because the story is so beautiful. — Isabelle Fuhrman

I have several books I can read over and over. With fiction, it's 'The Stand' by Stephen King, which is my favorite all time. I read that at least once a year, the version which has 100,000 extra words, which is like the director's cut and unabridged. I love the story. I love the social connotation to it. — Corey Taylor

I think a lot of times it just looks like Hollywood actors in Halloween costumes, you know? And I think what we're going to do with Fantastic Four is going to be very grounded and it made sense to me. When I read the script, I didn't feel like I was reading this larger-than-life, incredible superhero tale. These are all very human people that end up having to become I guess what is known as the Fantastic Four. So for me it was just a really good story and gives me an opportunity to play something different from my own skin. It's a proper character and that's my favorite stuff to do. — Miles Teller

You're my favorite nice girl. — Giselle Fox

Charity didn't mean to waste the entire afternoon. But her favorite daytime drama was on the telly. It was always the same, she thought, stretching out on the bed to watch. The sex got her interested first, and then the story. Before long she was totally hooked, and deep into the intricate plots and the glamorous goings-on. And afterwards, she just felt drained.
She was sound asleep by the time Lady Margaret came home. — Elizabeth Jane Howard

I don't read books. I read 'On the Road' in high school, and that was awesome, so I guess that's my favorite book. 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' even though I didn't read it, that's the greatest story. SparkNotes came in when I was in high school, and that was the greatest invention. — Meghan Trainor

John felt grounded again. He remembered his favorite Bible story, the one about Peter getting out of the boat and walking on water. The big fisherman was walking along quite nicely until he looked at the waves and began to sink. As much as possible, John tried to live his life without looking at the waves. But when he did, when the lives of his grown children caused his faith to waver even a little, God always sent someone to illustrate the words of Christ: "You of little faith . . . why did you doubt?" John felt certain that in this, his most trying season yet, the Lord had sent Pastor Mark to fill that role. It was a certainty that kept his eyes where they belonged - off the waves and straight ahead to the outstretched arms of Jesus. — Karen Kingsbury

Was I bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? You bet your sweet ass I was hurt. Who doesn't feel a part of their heart break at rejection. You ask yourself every question you can think of, what, why, how come, and then your sadness turns to anger. That's my favorite part. It drives me, feeds me, and makes one hell of a story. — Jennifer Salaiz

Depression is evil. Before you know it, it takes over and there's no escaping it. — E.L. Montes

I love touring, I love making records, but eventually all I want ... I want to score. I want people to ask me to score their film or use my songs in cinematic ways. I think the ultimate media is a story that you can watch and feel and have a musical moment to. I think it's my favorite. I love watching something when music is creating motion within the motion. — Justin Vernon

My favorite monologue in the book is Kate Harrington's story of her relationship with Truman. — George Plimpton

One of my favorite writers is short story writer/essayist Jorge Luis Borges, who was blind. I'm not claiming to be anything remotely resembling a talent of Borges' caliber, but he is an inspiration and a proof that one can be a meaningful and successful writer while blind. — Larry Howes

We go on in her room, where we like to set. I get up in the big chair and she get up on me and smile, bounce a little. "Tell me bout the brown wrapping. And the present." She so excited, she squirming. She has to jump off my lap, squirm a little to get it out. Then she crawl back up.
That's her favorite story cause when I tell it, she get two presents. I take the brown wrapping from my Piggly Wiggly grocery bag and wrap up a little something, like piece a candy, inside. Then I use the white paper from my Cole's Drug Store bag and wrap another one just like it. She take it real serious, the unwrapping, letting me tell the story bout how it ain't the color a the wrapping that count, it's what we is inside. — Kathryn Stockett

The foster home they were leaving was no place to be. The mother, Mrs. Boone, slapped Paris around every time her real daughter did something that called for punishment....After each beating, the daughter, Lisa, would swear she had no clue how her mama got the mistaken notion that Paris was the one who'd smashed a favorite vase, or stained the kitchen tablecloth, or whatever. My name is Paris, not Stupid, Paris would say to herself. — Nikki Grimes

The story unfolded quickly as I typed, in a way I was becoming familiar with. There was something about putting the truth on paper, bringing facts into the light of day where everyone could look at them, that made my fingers move faster -- it was becoming one of my favorite sensations on earth. — Gwenda Bond

My favorite novels allow me to imagine the characters afterward and what happened, and that I've witnessed a really great story, where the world goes on. — J.H. Wyman

But I refused to mope about for the evening. My little ritual with teacup, familiar chair, and a favorite Dickens story went a long way toward improving my outlook. — Janette Oke

There is Story Behind every Smile and You Are My Favorite Chapter!! — Saima

I think my favorite film of all time has to be 'The Illusionist' by Sylvain Chomet. Beautiful plot, beautiful story. You know, not much happens, but it's beautiful. And when I was young, 'The Triplets of Belleville' was one of my favorite movies. I liked his style a lot. — Isaac Hempstead-Wright

This is my favorite story of the week. The Republican National Committee is in trouble after spending nearly $2,000 at a bondage club in Hollywood. You know what I call a Republican that spends a lot of money in a strip club? A Democrat. — Jay Leno

You are always someones favorite unfolding story — Ann Patchett

One of my favorite things in watching an actor is feeling, The story is safe in your hands. I can lean back and trust you with this. — Alison Pill

They both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends, and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like beggars:
"Ma'am ... " or, "Kind gentleman ... have you a little story to tell us, please?"
And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather. — Gaston Leroux

My favorite movies are the ones that are different the second time, or where you're constantly discovering new things. It's not just genre movies, either, and it's not just about twists. I saw 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' four times in the theater before I realized it's a love story. I love that. — Drew Goddard

This is one of the chief differences between a child's experience of a favorite book and an educated adult's. For the adult, a book may be a work of art, possibly a very great one, but for the child reader, certain books are universes. If we are lucky, we retain some of that capacity to be immersed in a story. — Laura Miller

You are my favorite book. I immerse myself in your story and fall in love with each page. I will never be able to truly express to you how much I admire and cherish who you are. Nor will I be able to articulate the level of honor I feel to find myself included amongst the pages being written with each passing day. I love you. Thank you. — Steve Maraboli

Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite. — Unknown

My favorite part of any baseball book - and I read a lot of them - is the anecdotes. I believe there is a story within every boxscore and for me - the more outrageous the better! — Jonathan Weeks

Andromeda was her favorite. It was the story of a princess chained to the rocks and doomed to die, only to be rescued by Perseus. — Amy Bartelloni

Some of my favorite scenes aren't in the movie. Because you, at some point, realize that your responsibility as director is purely to the story. It's not to your pleasure. — Mark Ruffalo

Tom Kealey might be my favorite short story writer and this astonishing collection is long overdue. — Stephen Elliott

You're like the broken chapter of my favorite story. — Leylah Attar

While my favorite book of short stories is Fredrick Brown's 'Nightmares and Geezenstacks,' my favorite single story is 'Sound of Thunder,' by Ray Bradbury. — James Luceno

Of all the stories our mother told us when we were girls, the story about Lenz and the snowflakes and the sky was our favorite. We were children ourselves; we empathized with a little boy's failure to understand an adult's message. We got why his misapprehension was cute and silly, but we also got why it was wonderful, why this was a glorious way to see the world; not reduced to one of its component colors, but broad and encompassing and mystical, and the whole thing revolving around little old you. — Judith Claire Mitchell

My favorite films are when all of the technicalities are so seamless and so well done that I'm not thinking about them - you're able to go full-on into the story versus talking about edgy this moment was. — Condola Rashad

'The Master' with Joaquin Phoenix puts up a good fight, but my favorite movie of all time is 'The Wizard of Oz.' I just love it. I watched it over and over again as a child, and I think it has all the elements of wonder, and it's a beautiful story. — Jonny Weston

When I think of Tokyo Story, yeah, it is like a novella. That doesn't mean it's not great. Some of my favorite Tolstoy works are his novellas. — Paul Auster

Sometimes it's not just your favorite song. It's your untold story. — Minhal Mehdi

Imagining that you are going to come back to me is my favorite way to spend the day: a love story. I — Melissa Broder

I just wrapped 'Eclipse' yesterday and the last scene we shot is probably my favorite thus far. I finally got to tell my story, in a very gentle yet elaborate way. — Nikki Reed

Each piece of jewellery tells a story of my life. Picking one particular piece as a favorite would be like taking a chapter out of a book. — Erin Wasson

I like terrific writing, but I also like a terrific story. My favorite books have both, and they're by contemporary, commercial American writers. — Lisa Scottoline

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. — Sissy Spacek

I have built my entire life around loving music, and I surround myself with it. I'm always racing to catch up on my next favorite song. But I never stop playing my mixes. Every fan makes them. The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with - nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of a life. — Rob Sheffield

Margaret herself hadn't known her body was a parish bell tolling at every heartbreak she heard of, and that night with Pete calmly sitting on the edge of her favorite chair, invading her private room with words this room was sealed from, she felt it just as a bell would. It struck her right inside, until her bronze skin rang out the news. Not of Pete's story, which had not even made him cry, but some other story she'd been trying not to tell herself. So she sat stiffly there and wept, clanging and clanging like a thing that tested its own breaking. — Andrew Sean Greer

Sometimes when one cannot stand the story or novel one
is working on, it helps to write something else - a different
story or novel, or essays venting one's favorite peeves, or exercises
aimed at passing the time and incidentally polishing up
one's craft. The best way in the world for breaking a writer's
block is to write a lot. Jabbering away on paper, one gets
tricked into feeling interested, all at once, in something one is
saying, and behold, the magic waters are flowing again. Often
it helps to work on a journal, since that allows the writer to
write about those things that most interest him, yet frees him
of the pressure of achievement and encourages him to develop
a more natural, more personal style. — John Gardner

I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending. — Fred Rogers

My favorite roles usually have to do with the story, if it's a good story I usually enjoy doing the character. — Beau Bridges

My favorite films are the ones that I walk away from and I know I saw a story. — Shane Carruth

I'd say Rob Reiner's 'When Harry Met Sally' is my all-time favorite. It made me realize there's a way of telling a story where the audience is so in love with the characters that they forget you're even telling a story. — Tim Story

Everyone belongs to some community, whether it's based on your background, your home state, your college, or your favorite sports team. By identifying all the possible communities to which you belong, you may well find an affinity group - and a story - that helps get your business off the ground, secures your dream job, or lets you achieve whatever goal you are pursuing. — Blake Mycoskie

I'm a lifelong movie addict, and one of my favorite projects is making replica props and costumes. Nearly every one of these - from R2D2 to Hellboy's revolver - ends with the paint job. And it's not just cosmetic. The paint literally tells a story: what this thing is made of, where it's been, what it's been used for, and for how long. — Adam Savage

...his favorite books, those he'd read over and over so he knew just the lurch his heart would make when he turned the page and encountered the illustration of the despondent dragon under a half-moon or the fervor with which he flipped the final pages of another, the story so vivid he felt his relationship with that book was less an act of reading than a visit, a place he went to. — Keith Miller

Everyone on the Left has a favorite story that allows them to kind of excuse Reagan, explain away Reagan, say he was dumb, but unless we reckon with that kind of emotional intelligence and his ability to kind of speak to the aspirations of the American people, the less liberals are going to be able to understand the soul of his appeal. — Rick Perlstein

Words are alive
when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over.
Reading isn't passive
I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many. — Gary Paulsen

The Christian religion is derogatory to the Creator in all its articles. It puts the Creator in an inferior point of view, and places the Christian devil above him. It is he, according to the absurd story in Genesis, that outwits the Creator in the Garden Eden, and steals from Him His favorite creature, man, and at last obliges Him to beget a son, and put that son to death, to get man back again; and this the priests of the Christian religion call redemption. — Thomas Paine

My favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene. — Roger Zelazny

You're the best bad decision I ever made, and you are, by far, my favorite story to tell. — Jay Crownover

It was Ruby's favorite kind of story: where the boys lost and the girls won and got a souvenir in the bargain. — Nova Ren Suma

Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have - a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion. — Tom Rachman

My criteria for what makes a book an official 'favorite,' is based almost entirely on how desperately I don't want the story to end. — Barbara Park

As Mary Grannon, the beloved Mary of The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 'Just Mary' hour says:
So many parents are clinging to some favorite story in their own youth and measuring all children's material by it - forgetting what the last minstrel found out in his travels, that 'old times are changed, old manners gone, a stranger fills the Stuart's throne.' Let's not be like the bigots of the iron time; let's be rooters for the modern. — Judith C. Waller

Your favorite story, whatever it might be, was written for one reader — Victor Levin

I have to say my favorite stories are ghost stories. I don't like to see these made-up monster films or scary films with ghosts. It doesn't do anything to me. But a real ghost story that someone tells me, that I like. — Sandra Cisneros

My favorite kinds of stories are the ones that have these big crazy genre hijinks and then a real honest, meaty, emotional story where we're watching a character grapple with some real things. — Greg Pak

Among those dazzled by the Administration team was Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. After attending his first Cabinet meeting he went back to his mentor Sam Rayburn and told him with great enthusiasm how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next, and that the smartest of them all was that fellow with the Stacomb on his hair from the Ford Motor Company, McNamara. "Well, Lyndon," Mister Sam answered, "you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once." It is my favorite story in the book, for it underlines the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal fluency which the team exuded, and the true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam. — David Halberstam

Morris liked to share he books with others. Sometimes it was a favorite that everyone loved, and other times he found a lonely little volume whose tale was seldom told.
"Everyone's story matters," said Morris. And all the books agreed. — William Joyce

How do you get the happy ending? John Irving ought to know. One of my favorite authors, Irving writes these multigenerational epics of fiction that somehow work out in the end. How does he do it? He says, 'I always begin with the last sentence ; then I work my way backwards, through the plot, to where the story should begin.' Thst sounds like a lot of work, especially compared to the fantasy that great writers sit down and just go where the story takes them. Irving lets us know that good stories and happy endings are more intentional than that.
Most 20 something's can't write the last sentence of their lives. But when pressed, they usually can identify things they want in their 30s or 40s or 60s -or things they don't want- and work backward from there. This is how you have your own multigenerational epic with a happy ending. This is how you live your life in real time. — Meg Jay

I really love to read bedtime story for my kids before they fall asleep.
Making them so excited and inspired, it's truly my favorite quality time. — Toba Beta

My favorite books to give or get are short story collections. And always paperbacks because they are easy to carry as you travel. — Chuck Palahniuk

I don't have a favorite song that I've written. But I do have a favorite song: 'Always on My Mind,' the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells. — B.B. King