Pictures Tell Stories Quotes & Sayings

Comic strips introduced me to metaphors. They are pure metaphor, so you learn how to tell a story with symbols, which is a very valuable thing to learn. And I learned that from motion pictures, too, and from poetry. Poetry is mainly metaphor. If it doesn't have a metaphor, it doesn't work. — Ray Bradbury

It is a great honor for me to be compared to Henri Cartier-BressonBut I believe there is a very big difference in the way we put ourselves inside the stories we photograph. He always strove for the decisive moment as being the most important. I always work for a group of pictures, to tell a story. If you ask which picture in a story I like most, it is impossible for me to tell you this. I don't work for an individual picture. If I must select one individual picture for a client, it is very difficult for me. — Sebastiao Salgado

Yes, I receive fan mail. One of my favorite things to do is sit down and read the letters people write. It's really amazing the time people take to write these letters, tell their stories, draw pictures, etc. — Marisa Miller

I've always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It's people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories. — Lucian Freud

People don't care how you feel. You need to paint pictures, you need to tell stories. That's what people want. They want to be entertained. Then all of the other stuff kind of filters across as part of the whole thing. — Glenn Frey

I think that could go back to the time when people had to live in small groups of relatives - maybe fifty or a hundred people at the most. And evolution or God or whatever arranged things genetically, to keep the little families going, to cheer them up, so that they could all have somebody to tell stories around the campfire at night, and somebody else to paint pictures on the walls of the caves, and somebody else who wasn't afraid of anything and so on. That's what I think. And of course a scheme like that doesn't make sense anymore, because simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions. — Kurt Vonnegut

I'm a storyteller. I love to tell stories about brands. I love to tell stories, period. I like painting pictures through the words, and that's what I do. — Gary Vaynerchuk

I make books because I love them as objects; because I want to put the pictures and the words together, because I want to tell a story. — Audrey Niffenegger

And evolution or God or whatever arranged things genetically, to keep the little families going, to cheer them up, so that they could all have somebody to tell stories around the campfire at night, and somebody else to paint pictures on the walls of caves, and somebody else who wasn't afraid of anything and so on. — Kurt Vonnegut

We are creators. When we begin, separately or together, there's a blank piece of paper. When we are done, we are giving people dreams and magic and journeys into minds and lives that they have never lived. And we must not forget that.
Don't worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can't help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you'll have a style, whether you want it or not.
Don't worry about whether you're "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.
If you believe in it, do it. If there's a comic or a project you've always wanted to do, go out there and give it a try. If you fail, you'll have given it a shot. If you succeed, then you succeeded with what you wanted to do. — Neil Gaiman

I think of myth and magic as the hieroglyphics of the human psyche. They are a special language that circumvents conscious thought and goes straight to the subconscious.
Non-fiction uses the medium of information. It tells us what we need to know.
Science fiction primarily uses the medium of physics and mathematics. It tells us how things work, or could work.
Horror taps into the darker imagery of the psychology, telling us what we should fear.
Fantasy, magic and myth, however, tap into the spiritual potential of the human life. Their medium is symbolism, truth made manifest in word pictures, and they tell us what things mean on a deep, internal level. I have always been a meaning-maker. I have always been someone who strives to make sense of everything and perhaps that is where my life as a storyteller first began. Life doesn't always make sense, but story must. And so I write stories, and the world comes right again. — Ripley Patton

The images in a picture book are the driving forces that tell the story. The words tell only what the pictures can't. — Dan Yaccarino

What's happened with computer technology is perfectly timed for someone with my set of skills. I tell stories with pictures. What I love about CGI is that if I can think it, it can be put on the screen. — Frank Miller

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want. — George Lucas

The Thematic Apperception Test was a psychological test that consisted of a series of ambiguous pictures. Subjects were supposed to tell what they thought was happening in the pictures. Since no clear story was implied by the pictures, the subjects supplied the stories. And the stories told much more about the storytellers than about the pictures. — Michael Crichton

Every artist has a central story to tell, and the difficulty, the impossible task, is trying to present that story in pictures — Gregory Crewdson

An autobiography is not about pictures; it's about the stories; it's about honesty and as much truth as you can tell without coming too close to other people's privacy. — Boris Becker

I certainly knew from an early age ... how to tell stories; how to create pictures in other people's heads. — Clive Barker

I rejected any approach which begins with the question 'What do modern children like?' I might be asked, 'Do you equally reject the approach which begins with the question "What do modern children need?"--in other words, with the moral or didactic approach?' I think the answer is Yes. Not because I don't like stories to have a moral: certainly not because I think children dislike a moral. Rather because I feel sure that the question 'What do modern children need?' will not lead you to a good moral. If we ask that question we are assuming too superior an attitude It would be better to ask 'What moral do I need?' for I think we can be sure that what does not concern us deeply will not deeply interest our readers, whatever their age. But it is better not to ask the questions at all. Let the pictures tell you their own moral. — C.S. Lewis

I was an executive at Columbia Pictures for ten years. I was doing great. My career was on the upswing. But, right then, was when I said I gotta quit. I gotta start my own company. I gotta be on the other side of it because I felt the strong call on my life - to tell stories that, on the face of it, might not look like a commercial movie. — DeVon Franklin

I wanted to paint pictures of people. I thought, "Why bother doing anything else. Everything else is a waste of time. I want to tell stories about people and their feelings and emotions." — Lisa Yuskavage

Art is central to all our lives, not just the better-off and educated ... I know that from my own story, and from the evidence of every child ever born - they all want to hear and to tell stories, to sing, to make music, to act out little dramas, to paint pictures, to make sculptures. This is born in and we breed it out. And then, when we have bred it out, we say that art is elitist, and at the same time we either fetishize art - the high prices, the jargon, the inaccessibility - or we ignore it. The truth is, artist or not, we are all born on the creative continuum, and that is a heritage and a birthright of all of our lives. — Jeanette Winterson

The signs of excessive indulgence in this destructive pastime are easily detectable. They are these: A disposition to eat, to drink, to smoke, to meet together convivially, to laugh, to joke, and tell indelicate stories - and mainly, a yearning to paint pictures. — Mark Twain

Don't worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can't help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you'll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don't worry about whether you're "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you. — Neil Gaiman

We only had this one life. We could wish for the past all day long. We could look at old pictures and tell ourselves the same old stories but they're just that - stories. Memories. They happened. And maybe they were wonderful and amazing, and maybe they changed our lives in ways we'd never be changed again, but they no longer existed. By the time we stopped to reflect on one moment, it was gone, and another was instantly upon us, also destined to pass. — Sarah Ockler

I think when you're young and have that first burst of energy and make five or six pictures in a row that tell the stories of all the things in life you want to say ... well, maybe those are the films that should have won me the Oscar. — Martin Scorsese

I might be asked, 'Do you equally reject the approach which begins with the question "What do modern children need?" - in other words, with the moral or didactic approach?' I think the answer is Yes. Not because I don't like stories to have a moral: certainly not because I think children dislike a moral. Rather because I feel sure that the question 'What do modern children need?' will not lead you to a good moral. If we ask that question we are assuming too superior an attitude. It would be better to ask 'What moral do I need?' for I think we can be sure that what does not concern us deeply will not deeply interest our readers, whatever their age. But it is better not to ask the question at all. Let the pictures tell you their own moral. For the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life. But if they don't show you any moral, don't put one in. — C.S. Lewis