Short Storytelling Quotes & Sayings

A lesson in bringing about true changes of mind and heart comes from a Japanese functionary. By day, he crunched numbers that showed his country was approaching imminent energy crisis and helped to craft policy. By night, he weaved a novel in which a bureaucrat-hero helps see the country through to new energy sources. When the crisis came faster than he expected, he actually put the novel away because he did not want to make the burden of his countrymen worse. When the short-term crisis passed, he published his novel. It's phenomenal and well-timed success fueled the vision that inspired difficult change and maintained a sense of urgency. — Daniel Yergin

The storytelling mind is allergic to uncertainty, randomness, and coincidence. It is addicted to meaning. If the storytelling mind cannot find meaningful patterns in the world, it will try to impose them. In short, the storytelling mind is a factory that churns out true stories when it can, but will manufacture lies when it can't. — Jonathan Gottschall

A short story is not a portrayal of life. When life becomes disconsolate and the fear for the unknown seeps through the holes on the walls that we thought could protect us, telling a story could greatly help. The tradition of storytelling was oral, once. It's history. The wisdom in this history was the possibility to abide. Stories were medicines to drive away the ghosts of loneliness, boredom and ignorance. — Anu Lal

But short films are not inferior, just different. I think the short gives a freedom to film-makers. What's appealing is that you don't have as much responsibility for storytelling and plot. They can be more like a portrait, or a poem. — Jane Campion

I guess I would say that most of what I've learned about storytelling derives from novels and short stories. I cannot think of a novel or story, or a novelist or story writer, who thinks in terms of three-act structure. — Tom Bissell

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.
[Letter to Harrison Blake; November 16, 1857] — Henry David Thoreau

Life is short. Write naked. — A.D. Posey

Maybe storytelling belongs in audio - a short story is the length of a commute. That can be a sacred spot where you have the ear of the reader without having to compete with other media like games or TV. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Right before 'American Dreams,' I started to pursue these avenues, like short films and getting into a couple night courses to really study photography and cinematography, and the language of visual storytelling. — Tom Verica

A short film is just another storytelling medium like TV, Features, and Webisodes. I am just thrilled that 'Silent Cargo' is getting out there for people to see. — Ellen Wong

Short forms are returning online. Interactivity is coming back; it was always there in oral storytelling. — Margaret Atwood

I decided to make myself a little less precious with my storytelling. I think you can see from the first three pieces in the book that I have a long term relationship with the short story as a form and I really love an elegantly crafted story that has several elements that come together in a way that is emotionally complex and different from when we started. That kind of crystalline, perfect, idealized thing that the short story as a genre has come to represent. — Lucy Corin

Read a short story every day. By the end of the week you would have read volumes of stories. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The short story is a very natural mode of storytelling; most stories can be told quickly. I always think of them as like a tightrope walk - every sentence is a step along the rope, and you can so easily misplace your step and break your neck. — Kevin Barry

Picture to yourself the most beautiful girl imaginable! She was so beautiful that there would be no point, in view of my meagre talent for storytelling, in even trying to put her beauty into words. That would far exceed my capabilities, so I'll refrain from mentioning whether she was a blonde or a brunette or a redhead, or whether her hair was long or short or curly or smooth as silk. I shall also refrain from the usual comparisons where her complexion was concerned, for instance milk, velvet, satin, peaches and cream, honey or ivory, Instead, I shall leave it entirely up to your imagination to fill in this blank with your own ideal of feminine beauty. — Walter Moers

The space between the private and the public is the nexus of the personal and the social, if not political. It's where we meet the strong or subtle cultural censors who attempt to define what community, race, class, or gender can or cannot speak, to tell us which stories are told and valued and which are not. In short, it's where we're reminded of the power of personal stories and the power of the storyteller. — John Capecci And Timothy Cage

Through his mastery of storytelling techniques, he has managed to separate his character, in the public mind, from his actions as president. He has, in short, mesmerized us with that steady gaze. — James Nathan Miller

Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey
and returned. — Jasper Fforde