Narrate Quotes & Sayings

If I cannot narrate a life of adventurous and daring exploits, fortunately I have no heavy crimes to confess: and, if I do not rise in the estimation of the reader for acts of gallantry and devotion in my country's cause, at least I may claim the merit of zealous and persevering continuance in my vocation. We are all of us variously gifted from Above, and he who is content to walk, instead of to run, on his allotted path through life, although he may not so rapidly attain the goal, has the advantage of not being out of breath upon his arrival. — Frederick Marryat

She was not willing to let others narrate her life and her death. While there is one person like her in this world, I will find myself defending both her right to struggle and our obligation to remember. — Ariel Dorfman

I fought angrily against seeing particular types of poetic organization because it seemed awful to see my own life and these actual events in that way. But when you put forth an intention into the universe to speak a certain truth and narrate a certain period of your life, you start to see the sorts of symmetries that you are not usually supposed to be able to see until you are on your deathbed and your life flashes before your eyes. And you see exactly why everything happened. And even the most painful things you've ever been through can seem unbearably beautiful. — Joanna Newsom

I read reviews a lot for the audiobooks I narrate, so I've seen the comments about how readers would do anything to make book boyfriends real. Here I am, convinced I'm standing in the arms of one, and I'm about to walk away from him. — Colleen Hoover

I always have enjoyed people to read for me or to have the chace to listen of how they narrate a book. — Deyth Banger

In film you can use images exclusively and narrate a whole story very quickly, but you don't always so easily find the form in cinema to dig deeper into human thoughts and emotions. And in a novel you can much more easily express a character's inner thoughts and feelings. — Laura Esquivel

Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description. — D.H. Lawrence

Writing is incidental to my primary objective, which is spinning a good yarn. I view myself as a storyteller more than a writer. The story - and hence the extensive research that goes into each one of my books - is much more important than the words that I use to narrate it. — Ashwin Sanghi

Nothing requires so little mental effort as to narrate or follow a story. Hence everybody tells stories and the readers of stories outnumber all others. — John Lancaster Spalding

During the second half of the twentieth century, cross-fertilization among the disciplines of history, literature, sociology, and psychology led to scholarly awareness that historical accounts are not direct representations of actual events; they are, instead, interpretations of the meaning of events and are thus impacted by authorial bias, cultural assumptions, and linguistic frameworks. Historical accounts are conveyed through structures of stories, or in other words through the medium of narrative. This conceptual shift calls into question the assumption that histories recount factual descriptions of real events while stories narrate the literary artifice of imagine events. — Miranda Wilcox

Eid Crescent
I feed on bitterness and satiety never comes.
Today sadness has renewed itself.
Let me narrate the story of two souls,
Whose love was struck by the evil eye,
In a twist which Fate had hidden.
Luck won't smile and Time will scorch.
Only the stars know what is wrong with me.
I almost sense them craning to wipe my tears away. — Leila Aboulela

THE HABIT OF NARRATION, of crafting something miraculous out of the commonplace, was hard to break. Narration came naturally after a time spent in the company of talking scarecrows or disappearing cats; it was, in its own way, a method of keeping oneself grounded, connected to the thin thread of continuity that ran through all lives, no matter how strange they might become. Narrate the impossible things, turn them into a story, and they could be controlled. — Seanan McGuire

The situation comes first ... the characters ... come next ... [then] begin to narrate ... — Stephen King

The Loser proceeds to narrate the same story he tells in virtually every one of his plays and novels: a story of frustrated ambition and (incestuous) love, suicide, and the generally grotesque absurdity of existence. But — Thomas Bernhard

I must not get ahead of myself. If I do not narrate the events of my life with rigor and harmony, I will lose my way. — Isabel Allende

On New Year's Eve 1777, after performing in a play entitled The Devil to Pay in the West Indies, a party of drunken officers - one dressed up like Old Nick himself, complete with horns and tail - disrupted services at the John Street Methodist Church. Nor was that the worst of it. "I could narrate many and very frightful occurrences of theft, fraud, robbery, and murder by the English soldiers which their love of drink excited," said one dismayed German officer. — Edwin G. Burrows

About the new saga of Camp Half-Blood, Percy continues to narrate the book? Rachel (the new Delphic oracle) will remain on the books (I am Brazilian and I love your books ... I can not wait for the books debut in Portuguese). — Rick Riordan

Have I nothing new, nothing diverting, in my whimsical way, thou askest in one of thy letters to entertain thee with? and thou tellest me that, when I have least to narrate, to speak in the scottish phrase, I am most diverting, a pretty compliment either to thyself , or to me, to both indeed! a sign that thou hast as frothy a heart as I a head ! — Samuel Richardson

Acceptance asks only that you embrace what's true. Strange as it sounds, I don't think you've done that yet ... You're so outraged and surprised this shitty thing happened to you that there's a piece of you that isn't yet convinced it did. You're looking for the explanation, the loophole, the bright twist in the dark tale that reverses its course. Anyone would be. It's the reason I've had to narrate my own stories of injustice about seven thousand times, as if by raging about it once more the story will change and by the end of it I won't still be the woman hanging on the end of the line. — Cheryl Strayed

But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart. — Charles Dickens

To narrate is to create, for living is just being lived. — Fernando Pessoa

There was still something unfinished around her eyes; she wasn't done yet. She was a story, not an epilogue. And if she chose to narrate her own life one word at a time as she descended the stairs to meet her newest arrival, that wasn't hurting anyone. Narration was a hard habit to break, after all.
Sometimes it was all a body had. — Seanan McGuire

1 Pardon this highly unusual footnote, but I must break the Narrator's "fourth wall" to explain that this story will be "tricksy" in more than one way. Kitty Cheshire does not like being narrated. She seems to be aware of my watching her, and she resists. At times her thoughts and feelings squirm away from my inspection. I shall do my best, however, to narrate a completely true story about Ever After's most elusive character. — Shannon Hale

My old professor, meanwhile, was stunned by the normalcy of the day around him. Shouldn't the world stop? Don't they know what has happened to me?
But the world did not stop, it took no notice at all

Morrie's doctors guessed he had two years left. Morrie knew it was less.
But my old professor had made a profound decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor's office with a sword hanging over his head. Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself.
He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.
Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.
Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip. — Mitch Albom

In these random impressions, and with no desire to be other than random, I indifferently narrate my fact-less autobiography, my lifeless history. These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it's because I have nothing to say. — Fernando Pessoa

I was offered the opportunity to narrate the Catholic bible, and it was something I really wanted to be involved with. — John Rhys-Davies

At one point in the story, following a brazen daytime bank robbery, Electro is shown escaping from the authorities by climbing up the side of a building, as easily as Spider-Man . . . we see one observer exclaim, "Look!! That strangely-garbed man is racing up the side of the building!" A second man on the street picks up the narrative: "He's holding on to the iron beams in the building by means of electric rays - using them like a magnet!! Incredible!"

There are three feelings inspired by this scene. The first is wonder as to why people rarely use the phrase "strangely-garbed" anymore. The second is nostalgia for the bygone era when pedestrians would routinely narrate events occurring in front of them, providing exposition for any casual bystander. And the third is pleasure at the realization that Electro's climbing this building is actually a physically plausible use of his powers. — James Kakalios

When he says "Skins or blankets?" it will take you a moment to realized that he's asking which you want to sleep under. And in your hesitation he'll decide that he wants to see your skin wrapped in the big black moose hide. He carried it, he'll say, soaking wet and heavier than a dead man, across the tundra for two - was it hours or days or weeks? But the payoff, now, will be to see it fall across one of your white breasts. It's December, and your skin is never really warm, so you will pull the bulk of it around you and pose for him, pose for his camera, without having to narrate this moose's death. — Pam Houston

If I could narrate your life I would , especially Jose's. — Morgan Freeman

Life is like a book. It is your decision to narrate it or to live it — Gabriela Rodriguez

I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes. — Jorge Luis Borges

To narrate is to create, whilst to live is merely to be lived. — Fernando Pessoa

Serious fiction writers think about moral problems practically. They tell stories. They narrate. They evoke our common humanity in narratives with which we can identify, even though the lives may be remote from our own. They stimulate our imagination. The stories they tell enlarge and complicate - and, therefore, improve - our sympathies. They educate our capacity for moral judgment. — Susan Sontag

Now if only I could do something about my neurosis that forces me to narrate my life out loud for everyone to hear, I said, to no one in particular. — Iain S. Thomas

He doesn't agree with the conventional wisdom that says, "The world changed on September 11." Hauerwas says, "No, the world changed in 33 A.D. The question is how to narrate what happened on September 11 in light of what happened in 33 A.D. — Jim Wallis

One can never know oneself but only narrate oneself — Simone De Beauvoir

There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again. — Douglas Adams

With a little heartache;
Gone with the time,
Are certain memories,
Intricately designed.
To call & narrate
A story of blissful sunshine. — Somya Kedia

A poet, Hephaestion, sings not to narrate human events as they occur, but to make sure that we have the opportunity of living the emotions and the passions of our heroes even at a distance of centuries. — Valerio Massimo Manfredi

If you want to make yourself more sensitive to the small details in your work, cultivate a habit of imagining, as specifically as possible, what you expect to see and do when you get to your desk. Then you'll be prone to notice the tiny ways in which real life deviates from the narrative inside your head. If you want to become better at listening to your children, tell yourself stories about what they said to you at dinnertime last night. Narrate your life, as you are living it, and you'll encode those experiences deeper in your brain. If you need to improve your focus and learn to avoid distractions, take a moment to visualize, with as much detail as possible, what you are about to do. It is easier to know what's ahead when there's a well-rounded script inside your head. — Charles Duhigg

People have wanted to narrate since first we banged rocks together & wondered about fire. There'll be tellings as long as there are any of us here, until the stars disappear one by one like turned-out lights. — China Mieville

To narrate is to give oneself: it seems obvious that literature, as an effort to communicate fully, will continue to be blocked so long as misery and illiteracy exist, and so long as the possessors of power continue to carry on with impunity their policy of collective imbecilization through the mass media. — Eduardo Galeano

It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creating the minutiae of detail. Writing fiction requires stamina, a sense of how people's lives work, how people work toward and against one another and, above all, precision. — Cate Marvin

Collective freedom provides the basic conditions for people to narrate their own lives, hold power accountable, and embrace a capacious notion of human dignity. — Henry Giroux

One objection I have heard voiced to works of this kind-dealing with Texas-is the amount of gore spilled across the pages. It can not be otherwise. In order to write a realistic and true history of any part of the Southwest, one must narrate such things, even at the risk of monotony. — Robert E. Howard

O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!
O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths!
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb!
A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee. — Walt Whitman

A story is entirely determined by what portion of time it chooses to narrate. — Joan Silber

I suppose the best way to tell the story is simply to narrate it, without an effort to carry belief. The thing did not require belief. It was not a feeling of horror in one's bones, or a misty outline, or anything that needed to be given actuality by an act of faith. It was as solid as a wardrobe. You don't have to believe in wardrobes. They are there, with corners. (The Troll) — T.H. White

When Veronica Mars was canceled, the following season of pilots for The CW had been announced, and one was Gossip Girl. I read it, and I knew I was sort of old to play any of the kids. I called Dawn Ostroff
who was the head of The CW at the time
and said, 'Hey, I did so much narration on Veronica Mars, can I narrate this show? And she said, 'Hey, that's a very good idea.' They knew I had a younger voice, they liked me and they knew I'd show up for work, and I guess that was all I really needed. It was so clear to me how sassy and catty she needed to be. — Kristen Bell

It takes cognitive toil and literary dexterity to pare an argument to its essentials, narrate it in an orderly sequence, and illustrate it with analogies that are both familiar and accurate. — Steven Pinker

From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrate something, I didn't want to tell a story. I wanted to show something, I wanted for them to make their own story from what they were seeing. — Abbas Kiarostami

I narrate the story but he dies off-stage between commercials. A washing machine ad later, we are dressed in our funereal best. We sniffle and indulge in product placement for Kleenex. The credits roll. — Thomm Quackenbush

The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them. Most important, the grand narratives of emancipation and enlightenment mobilized people in the colonial world to rise up and throw off imperial subjection; in the process, many Europeans and Americans were also stirred by these stories and their protagonists, and they too fought for new narratives of equality and human community. — Edward W. Said

Take away the love and the laughter, narrate the stories as if the characters had acted with malice and self-absorption, and everybody was in a bleak independent film about alcoholism and schizophrenia and child abuse. — Nick Hornby

We require experience to stay ahead, if only by a nose, of our consciousness of experience - if for no other reason than that the latter needs to make sense of the former, to (as Peyman would say) narrate it both to others and ourselves, and, for this purpose, has to be fed with a constant, unsorted supply of fresh sensations and events. — Tom McCarthy

Dark chocolate, poured over velvet: that was how his voice tasted. I wanted him to follow me around and narrate the rest of my life. — R. J. Anderson

Somebody
Give us a story
Narrate all the places
That we'll never see
Give us a haven
For our imagination
So at least in our minds
We can attempt to be free — Charlotte Wessels

Loser lit antiheroes aren't well intentioned or earnest; they don't care whether you like them or not. They're self-mocking, ironic and inventive; they narrate their downfalls with manic wordplay, rampant metaphors, wisecracks, and escalating flights of spleen-fueled lyricism. — Kate Christensen

I think the language of sacrifice is particularly important for societies like the United States in which war remains our most determinative common experience, because states like the United States depend on the story of our wars for our ability to narrate our history as a unified story. — Stanley Hauerwas

The ability to see our lives as stories and share those stories with others is at the core of what it means to be human. We use stories to order and make sense of our lives, to define who we are, even to construct our realities: this happened, then this happened, then this. I was, I am, I will be. We recount our dreams, narrate our days and organize our memories into stories we tell others and ourselves. As natural-born storytellers, we respond to others' stories because they are deeply, intimately familiar. — John Capecci And Timothy Cage

Expatriation, like love, is not only a condition that devastates and reconfigures the self; it is, like love, a trope, a figure with which we try to explain, try to narrate profound psychological disruptions in terms of very measurable entities: a person, a place, an event, a moment, etc. — Andre Aciman