Retold Quotes & Sayings

Both fictions and memories are recalled and retold. They're both forms of stories. Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other. — Iain Reid

The idea of love horrified me, and I knew I couldn't have it, so I didn't want it. — H.A. Lamb

Do you wonder where poetry come from? Where do we get the songs we sing and the tales we tell? Do you ever ask yourself how it is that some people can dream great, wise, beautiful dreams and pass those dreams on as poetry to the world, to be sung and retold as long as the moon will wax and wane? Have you ever wondered why some people make beautiful songs and poems and tales, and some of us do not?
It is a long story, and it does no credit to anyone: there is murder in it, and trickery, lies and foolishness, seduction and pursuit. Listen. — Neil Gaiman

Some foolish people must have a tragedy, for they cannot believe in happy endings — Isobelle Carmody

Fantasy elevates ordinary and eternal problems of young people into stories via the language of myth. It turns "No one really knows me" into "I've got a secret identity." It turns "I don't understand why other people act the way they do" into "I'm trapped in a faerie realm." It turns "my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell" into "my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell."
There are certain things in life that are glorious, and they are glorious for everyone. There are more that are hard, and they are hard for everyone. We like to see these things retold, but with dragons. — Erin Bow

....[T]he night terrors were no match for the glory of waking up to a new day in the Land of Israel. In every conscious moment, Yael was aware that she was living through times that would form the legends and myths of future generations. Just as her generation told and retold the story of the Exodus from Egypt - the event that changed the nature of Israel forever - so would her people hundreds of years from now tell of the end of the Great Exile and the return to this land. The wonder of it touched everything around her, casting a golden glow over even the most mundane events. Nothing seemed impossible, and nothing seemed entirely real. — Yael Shahar

Create a story of WOW that will be retold. — Jeffrey Gitomer

Kami'd always retold her fairy tales to make the fair maidens braver and more self-sufficient, but she had never had any real objection to the handsome prince. — Sarah Rees Brennan

The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic. — E. O. Wilson

D.H. Lawrence says that myths are "inexhaustible" because they are symbols of heart mysteries. That is, they can't be exhausted - they somehow have embodied some central human mystery (love, loss, being a body in time, who knows which or what?) and thus can be retold infinitely and still be rich. That's part of your saying: it's old, but it's also new. Or: there's nothing "new" in the human heart, but it still matters lots. — Gregory Orr

Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help -
this life after death? — Anne Sexton

Somehow it felt familiar, an old story retold, the claws in my shoulder, my arms twisted behind my back, the drag down the street, Will assisting my father and thinking how much fun it was to hunt someone down. I knew it all. Each snarled command was a line from an old but faithless song. "Pipe down! I'm not going to hurt you! I just want to talk to you! This is for your own good! — Kaimana Wolff

My heart stood still. "But why me?" I choked out.
He dipped his head to murmur in my ear. "It was fated. I saw you once before - in Paris. You were surrounded by your panting lapdogs and would have none of them. It was then I knew that I alone would have you. The rest was Allah's will," he continued matter-of-factly. "You came to Biskra. You arranged a tour in the desert. You were bored and wanted adventure. I have granted that wish." He flashed a feral smile. "And now you will grant mine. — Victoria Vane

You worked at night, when the shadows masked you and you were little more than a dream. You hid in the forest or the mountains, away from the steam engines and the lamps of the cities, the things that would expose you, confirming you and stripping you of your mystery. You showed yourself rarely, and only to the ones who needed to see you. After the free-for-all that was the earlier Chapters, when babies were stolen, young men murdered and maidens locked away, the fae had had to learn to be very careful about their involvement in the lives of the characters, lest they turn still further away from their beliefs. — F.D. Lee

So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own. — Sarah Dessen

We've got an airborne Sleeping Beauty — Seanan McGuire

A son," the Queen said, and her smile lit up the room. "Will I give birth soon?"
The old woman nodded.
"When?"
The old woman reached out and rested her hand on top of the basket, watched the Queen's eyes darken. "When he's more beautiful than you. — Wheeler Scott

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

You don't approve?" Joan asked, picking up on Delphine's tone.
"Their stories were for themselves, not the Mirrors."
"What do you mean?" said Bea.
"Certainly sometimes a good little character would find a lamp, and would not be so corrupted by the strangely endless possibilities of three wishes that they ended up causing more harm than they ever imagined. Those stories fostered belief, they were retold, certainly; but they were few and far between. Most of the genie's tales showed the characters exactly who they really were, not when they were despised and degraded, not when they'd reached the gutter and been given licence to look at the stars. No, the genies showed them who they were when they were invincible. The characters, they try to forget stories like that. — F.D. Lee

Rodney wasn't what you'd call eloquent, but he had a couple guys he used to drink with, so we got these bits of quadruple-drunk story: Rodney drunk when he told it, his friends drunk when they heard, then drunk again when they retold it to a bunch of drunks. — Kent Meyers

When Sleeping Beauty wakes up, the whole palace is upset. "You must go back to sleep," her mother tells her, "It's not time." From what she understands, the Prince hasn't come to rescue her yet. — Mads Sukalikar

Abby stood nervously before her Master in the classic submissive pose: fully nude, legs apart, wrists placed behind her back; deeply ashamed of her evident arousal. Worse, she had to recount in exact detail the proceedings of her last whipping. The whipping had been severe; as was the case with most of the clients she was commissioned to serve. Most of these clients were men, some were women, on occasion a couple, or even a group. Nevertheless her body reacted like that of a wanton whore as she retold of the sadistic punishments and extreme sexual use inflicted upon her body.
How far would her Master push her with these 'tests'? How far would Abigail go? How many times could she stand before him blushing; yet with that unmistakable tingle? Their relationship was surely headed for a collision course. Or was it? — Al Daltrey

...American history can be told and retold, claimed and reclaimed, even by people who don't look like George Washington and Betsy Ross. — Jeremy McCarter

Passage of time as a prop to the story, the story that has been told and retold so often it has lost its meaning, even to those of us who lived through it. — Paul Tremblay

Arian's ebony hair was spread in a shimmering fan around her shoulders, reminding Tristan absurdly of Snow White in her glass coffin. Even in death, hadn't the deceptive blush of life stained Snow White's pallid cheeks? Hadn't her rosebud lips parted as if to welcome a kiss from a prince who might never come? Hadn't the creamy swell of her breasts tantalized every hopelessly naive kid in the theater into daring to believe her chest would rise just one more time? — Teresa Medeiros

Fairy Tales give you more than just smile.
They give you Hope.
Hope that at the end true love conquers all odds and slays every dragon. — Ameya Agrawal

Stories are made up by people who make them up. If they work, they get retold. There's the magic of it. — Neil Gaiman

When the archeologists find this place they'll destroy history. Mankind will attempt to bury this information but we will ensure there is a leak. Intel this valuable makes insignificant fame starved humans grand masters of legend.Secrets are best retold to hungry ears. — Poppet

In Haiti, as I understand it, storytelling and history itself are not a business of necessarily elucidating facts or the truth of an incident, but finding the version that is most entertaining and therefore will get retold and live in immortality. — John Edgar Wideman

In their (women) quest for rights they have naturally placed emphasis on their wrongs rather than their achievements and possessions, and have retold history as a story of their long martyrdom — Mary Ritter Beard

The soul is a story that can always be retold. — David Bentley Hart

I love you. The words reverberated between them, sinking into their skin, scored onto their hearts as they staked their claims to each other's bodies, surrendering themselves and possessing each other, a tangle of limbs and lust and love, coiled together into one perfect unit, one small miracle, one simple story that has been told and retold since the beginning of time: just two people meeting, the most extraordinary and wondrous and mundane thing in the world. — Kate Aaron

The present era grabs everything that was ever written in order to transform it into films, TV programs; or cartoons. What is essential in a novel is precisely what can only be expressed in a novel, and so every adaptation contains nothing but the non-essential. If a person is still crazy enough to write novels nowadays and wants to protect them, he has to write them in such a way that they cannot be adapted, in other words, in such a way that they cannot be retold. — Milan Kundera

He wasn't having me try on a glass slipper, but for some strange reason, I finally understood exactly why Cinderella ran off with the prince after having only known him for one night. Having a hot guy kneeling in front of you is sort of intoxicating. — Sariah Wilson

Once upon a time there was an empress, trapped as a ghost in the ruins of a jewelled palace, cursed to find another soul to take her place. At least, that's what the empress heard. But, as it turned out, stories can have any ending you like. — Kirsty Logan

The Holocaust story has been told and retold so many times. — Israel Horovitz

The silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in ways that bring forward the perspective of the world. — Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Then, Zil and a half dozen of his crew swaggered into the plaza from the far side. Astrid clenched her jaw. Would the crowd turn on them? She almost hoped so. People thought because she wouldn't let Sam go after Zil she must not really despise the Human Crew's Leader. That was wrong. She hated Zil. Hated everything he had done and everything he had tried to do.
Edilio moved quickly between Zil and a few of the boys who had started toward him, sticks and knives at the ready.
Zil's kids were armed with knives and bats, and so were those who wanted to take them on. Edilio was armed with an assault rifle.
Astrid hated that this was what life so often came down to: my weapon is bigger than your weapon.
If Sam were here it would be about his hands. Everyone had either seen what Sam could do, or heard the stories retold in vivid detail. No one challenged Sam. — Michael Grant

My name is all but lost to antiquity while his legend is told and retold around the world. Yet I am a god and he is nothing but a bastard seed not even fit to inhabit Olympus. (Priapus)
Get your hands off her, you worthless footnote. You're not fit to wipe her shoes. (Julian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Again, again ... " really means "We must love each other, you and I, if this one story, told and retold, is all we need." Reading again isn't about repeating yourself; it's about offering fresh proof of a love that never tires. — Daniel Pennac

I'd learned I didn't need kindling - I was kindling. ("Red") — Alyxandra Harvey

The richest most meaningful stories are found in small places: made, carried, crafted, told, and retold by apparently unimportant people. — Louise Brown

And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in between anywhere. — John Steinbeck

We may just be specters in this world, but our stories, if they are remembered and retold, become real and solid and alive ... Once you hear a story, it becomes part of you. It can't die. — Candace Fleming

I began to think that there was a place for 'Footloose' to get retold again, that there was actually a more conducive political climate, an emotional climate to explore a town that has experienced a trauma and a shock, and starts overreacting. — Craig Brewer

Keep your sword close and your friends closer. — Kiley Kellermeyer

With him died a story
That will not be retold:
How, forsaking glory,
Achilles grows old
While Hector dusts his trophies
Behind high walls-
For in his unsung strophes
Troy never falls — R.S. Gwynn

Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson. — Winston S. Churchill

In the end, perhaps we should simply imagine a joke; a long joke that's continually retold in an accent too thick and strange to ever be completely understood. Life is that joke my friends. The soul is the punch line. — Tom Robbins

I'm glad she's so smitten with her new huntsman boyfriend and all, but venison-wurst? Gag me with a harpsichord. — Nicki Elson

When I was very young, I was already a fabulador. I loved to give my own version of stories that everybody already knew. When I got out of a movie with my sisters, I retold them the whole story. In general they liked my version better than the one they had seen. — Pedro Almodovar

A necessary part of our intelligence is on the line as the oral tradition becomes less and less important. There was a time throughout our land when it was common for stories to be told and retold, a most valuable exercise, for the story retold is the story reexamined over and over again at different levels of intellectual and emotional growth. — Wes Jackson

I think we'd all hate to be the one who gets declared undateable by one's entire grad-school population based on a couple of told and retold stories. — Carolyn Hax

A man in his early prime contemplates on life, shattered by the distortions of society he gazes ahead in time. There were vows of happiness and fairy tale beginnings. Now there is nothing of that sort; now there is nothing that started the tales so bright. It's after all this while that he understands why fairy tales begin with 'once upon a time'... — Adhish Mazumder

In you, she saw hope.""You mean she saw his next meal. — Nicki Elson

The story being told in 'Star Wars' is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you're in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they're actually not. — George Lucas

Son of a Merryweather, he's a lot stronger than he looks. — Nicki Elson

Although Branwen had no patience for dry lists of names and dates, she had always loved the thrilling tales of the old wars that were told and retold around the hearth in the Great Hall of Garth Milain. — Allan Frewin Jones

A kiss implied an introduction, a kind of conversation unwinding between two people. Usually two people who could actually stand each other's company. This was like being thrown into the middle of the ocean when you'd never even set foot into a creek before.
He spun me around, pressing me against the stone wall as if even gravity was too much of an interruption, as if he couldn't spare a single scrap of energy for standing, not when he could be kissing me. — Alyxandra Harvey

To tell the truth, fairytales have never gone out of style. They have been told and retold for thousands of years, finding new shapes and structures with each new generation of tellers. — Kate Forsyth

I am reminded that every day I have the chance to pick up a needle and some thread and add to the story. To stitch together something beautiful and unique, to patch a small scrap of fabric to the story, to the Story of God, that will be retold again and again for all of eternity. — Jerusalem Jackson Greer

As stories are told and retold, they evolve. They come to emphasize individuals, not organizations; to celebrate a flash of insight over stepwise improvements; and to exaggerate obstacles while downplaying institutional support. — Chip Heath

The sun set beyond thesea, so says the poet - and when a poet mentions a sea, we have to accept it; no harm in letting a poet describe his vision, no need to question his geography. — R.K. Narayan

Do you wonder where poetry comes from? Where we get the songs we sing and the tales we tell? Do you ever ask yourself how it is that some people can dream great, wise, beautiful dreams and pass those dreams on as poetry to the world, to be sung and retold as long as the sun rises and sets, as long as the moon will wax and wane? Have you ever wondered why some people make beautiful songs and poems and tales, and some of us do not? It — Neil Gaiman

To the Hesitating Purchaser:
If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands, and maroons
And Buccaneers and buried Gold
And all the old romance, retold,
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of to-day:
-So be it, and fall on! If not,
If studious youth no longer crave,
His ancient appetites forgot,
Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
So be it, also! And may I
And all my pirates share the grave,
Where these and their creations lie! — Robert Louis Stevenson

Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself. — Erin Morgenstern

Aamah would sometimes remind them that the story of an old disputte should be retold only when no aftertaste of bitterness remains upon the tongue. — Catherine M. Wilson

When we change the shape of the Land, we alter the contents and contexts of our collective, familial, and personal memories. Yet, stories can preserve both mythic and familiar elements of geography even when the physical features are forgotten, buried, or obliterated. And more than this: the stories can bring these elements back. If the Land can be preserved long enough for its stories to be told, and retold, perhaps we all - as custodians of both place and memory - stand a chance at real preservation. — Ari Berk

Retold, my dream is nothing; dreamt, it was terrible. — Jorge Luis Borges