Retell Quotes & Sayings

It is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing ... — Galway Kinnell

Every age sort of has its own history. History is really the stories that we retell to ourselves to make them relevant to every age. So we put our own values and our own spin on it. — Terry Jones

The perfect story is one you can retell in three minutes, and every single sentence is interesting. — Malik Bendjelloul

Storytelling? God started that. Discovery. Lust. Murder. Revenge. Power. Sin. Redemption. Forgiveness. Miracles. We simply retell the stories in the language of our generation. — Dennis R. Miller

I think I also don't confess because I am still so unbelieving of what happened. I am still aghast. I stun myself each time I retell the truth to myself, let alone to someone else. So I am evasive in order to spare myself ... I can see though that my secrecy does me no favors. It probably makes worse my sense of being outlandish. It confirms to me that it might be abhorrent, my story, or that few can relate to it. — Sonali Deraniyagala

Yes, often, I am reminded of her, and in one of my vast array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt- an immense leap of an attempt- to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.
Here it is. One of a handful.
The Book Thief.
If you feel like it, come with me. I will tell you a story.
I'll show you something. — Markus Zusak

Part of my job is to make sense of all that I hear, and to retell it in a forceful way so that the decision-makers at Treasury can hear it. At least that's how I see it. — Elizabeth Warren

Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell. — Louisa May Alcott

Many people think fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales are only for children, but I'm not the only writer to take an old tale and retell it for a sophisticated adult audience. — Kate Forsyth

There are a lot of wrong reasons to do a remake, but there are some good ones. I think it's human nature, in many ways, to retell our favorite stories. We do it in the theater, all the time. I've seen four different Hamlets, and every one has given me something different. — Joel Kinnaman

So this is my cue of where to leave you. Now it's your story to retell and pass on. Because an idea is only relevant if it's being thought upon. So remember, never surrender.'Cause the unrelenting constancy of love and hope will rescue and restore from any scope. — Thomas Dutton

Why didn't you tell us you were the Alexander Black who can stand atop a cantering horse and shoot a hole through a plum at a hundred paces?"
With a snort, Alec jerked his gaze away. "More like a cantaloupe. The thing shrinks with every retelling. Soon they'll have me shooting at a mustard seed. — Sabrina Jeffries

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless. — Salman Rushdie

All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions. — Joseph Conrad

One cannot make up stories; one can only retell in new ways the stories one has already heard. — Carolyn Heilbrun

Many of us become walking self-caricatures at a certain point, and politicians can be particularly vulnerable, especially those who have maneuvered their very public lives as conspicuously as McCain. They tell and retell the same stories; things get musty. They engage in a lot of self-mythologizing, — Mark Leibovich

We could retell our stories and make them better, more representational or aspirational. Or we could choose to tell different stories. The world itself had another chance. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Woman, where are they? Has no one judged you guilty?"
She answers "No one, sir."
Then Jesus says, "I also don't judge you guilty. You may go now, but don't sin anymore."
If you have ever wondered how God reacts when you fail, frame these words and hang them on the wall.Read them. Ponder them.Drink from them. Stand below them and let them wash over your soul.
Or better still, take him with you to to your canyon of shame. Invite Christ to journey with you back to the Fremont Bridge of your world. Let Him stand beside you as you retell the events of the darkest nights of your soul.
And then listen. Listen carefully. He's speaking.
"I don't judge you guilty."
And watch. Watch carefully. He's writing. He's leaving a message. Not in the sand, but on a cross.
Not with his hand, but with his blood.
His message has two words: not guilty. — Max Lucado

To keep a story on a shelf or to remember then retell it means that it will be more likely to exist to those who come after we have gone. — Ander Monson

For me, therapy is partly translation therapy, the talking cure a second-language cure. My going to a shrink is, among other things, a rite of initiation: initiation into the language of the subculture within which I happen to live, into a way of explaining myself to myself. But gradually, it becomes a project of translating backward.
The way to jump over my Great Divine is to crawl backward over it in English. It's only when I retell my whole story, back to the beginning, and from the beginning onward, in one language, that I can reconcile the voices within me with each other; it is only then that the person who judges the voices and tells the stories begins to emerge. — Eva Hoffman

As happens with all miracles, once life goes on, those who believe retell them with wonder. Those who do not, do not. — Mitch Albom

It was her favorite story, that she remembers, but she would be hard-pressed to retell it now, faithfully, as it had been told to her. All she could recall were frayed, sleep-watered images of a forgotten castle in the middle of a wild forest, stone statues, crimson roses, and a dark, animal presence never seen, but which stained her memory of the tale, even past its edges to the daylight after. — Ava Zavora

Who knows their own story? Certainly it makes no sense when we are living in the midst of it. It's all just clamor and confusion. It only becomes a story when we tell it and retell it. Our small precious recollections that we speak again and again to ourselves and to others, first creating the narrative of our lives and then keeping the story from dissolving into darkness. — Nick Cave

Like all religious people, Christians repress, remember, and retell their core stories selectively. They emphasize this episode at the expense of that episode, in keeping with their own biases and the preoccupations of their times. — Stephen R. Prothero

It seems like every year Hollywood makes an attempt to retell the Manson story, and I just couldn't be less interested in it. It's not really our crowning achievement as a civilisation. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but it just bores me. — John Hawkes

I have always argued that we can't live by or be made to exist outside of mythology, and that every group and nation has, possibly unacknowledged to themselves, some myths by which they live. It remains important to revisit them, understand them and possibly retell them - or at least own up to them - and then it becomes possible to move something. If it's obscure or invisible to you, you can't budge those understandings. — Marina Warner

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it. — Hilary Mantel

We retell our favorite stories. That's what we've done since we were sitting around campfires. It's a part of the human spirit. It doesn't have to be negative to creativity. It can be completely opposite. That's how you can break new ground: by rethinking something that's already been done. — Joel Kinnaman

As Patrick Harpur points out, we cannot 'explain' or 'decode' a myth. To look for the historic or scientific 'truth' of a myth is but to retell the myth, albeit in a less satisfying way. We render unto materialism the control of our most precious mythologies if we allow them to be 'scientifically explained' to us. A new language is required. New words. — Gordon White

As if there could be true stories: things happen in one way, and we retell them in the opposite way. — Jean-Paul Sartre

People forgot; it was in the nature of people to forget, to blur boundaries, to retell stories to come out the way they wanted them to come out, to remember things as how they ought to be instead of how they were. — Robin McKinley

As EP, survivors have been unable to create a complete personal story and are unable to share the original experience verbally and socially. They are stuck in the traumatic experience where they relive rather than retell their terror. — Onno Van Der Hart

In 'Surprised by Grace: God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels,' I retell the story of Jonah and show how Jonah was just as much in need of God's grace as the sailors and the Ninevites. — Tullian Tchividjian

Lyall's face went deadpan as he relayed the details, as those who are tortured or raped will become when they retell the pattern of abuse — Gail Carriger

One of the things I try to do is try to make repetitions, rhymes, and mirrorings across the subject matter of my own books so that the chapter titles and the epigraphs and pictures all kind of form a tapestry. In this book, I retell fifteen of the stories. You have the critical frame, and then you have these rosettes like the motif in a carpet. — Marina Warner

Yes, I'm often reminded of her, and in one of my array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt - an immense leap of an attempt - to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it. — Markus Zusak

A part of what makes myths live is their multiplicity, the way different voices retell them in every generation. Homer survives because his poetry was outstanding, yes, but also because he's been passed down by so many by luminaries like Vergil and Ovid, Shakespeare, James Joyce and Margaret Atwood, but also by countless others. I wanted to do my part for these tremendous stories. — Madeline Miller

I had always wanted to retell a Shakespeare play. It was an ambition from college days. But in order to be able to do it ... the circumstances in my life didn't come together for a long time. — Chris Adrian

Those who do not have the power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it...and change it as time changes...cannot think new thoughts. — Linda Mornell

We artists can only go so far as the people can follow us. We are not alone, we are part of the system. We can take risks, but if you want to go to the peak of your consciousness, you may very well find yourself alone. Even if you know how to translate what you see, maybe only ten people will be able to understand what you tell. But, if you have faith in your vision, and retell it again and again, you will start noticing that, after a time, more people will begin to catch up with you. — Jean Giraud

You make the mistake of considering Christianity as something that developed over the course of a few years, from the death of Jesus to the time the gospels were written. But Christianity wasn't new. Only the name was new. Christianity was merely a stage in the meeting, cross-fertilization, metamorphosis of Western logic and Eastern mysticism. Look how the religion itself changed over the centuries, reinterpreting itself to meet changing times. Christianity is just a new name for a conglomeration of old myths and philosophies. All the gospels do is retell the sun myth and garble some of the ideas from the Greeks and Romans. — Michael Moorcock

Being a writer isn't about writing what you want or what you're comfortable with. It's about having a unique awareness and ability to faithfully retell the stories of others. — P. Anastasia

How does one say something new and not retell? — Dejan Stojanovic

In the degree that we remember and retell our stories and create new ones we become the authors, the authorities, of our own lives. — Sam Keen

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