Stories They Tell Quotes & Sayings

For years and years, I convinced myself that I was unbreakable, an animal with an animal strength or something not human at all. Me, I told people, I take damage like a wall, a brick wall that never falls down, never feels anything, never flinches or remembers. I am one woman but I carry in my body all the stories I have ever been told, women I have known, women who have taken damage until they tell themselves they can feel no pain at all. — Dorothy Allison

You own everything that happend to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.
-- Anne Lamott — Doreen Carvajal

I love songs that tell stories. They make you feel something, something real. — Daphne Ashbrook

I can't protect you from the stars, but I can tell you stories that may help at night when they are staring at you. — Karen Hines

When someone doesn't show up, the people who wait sometimes tell stories about what might have happened and come to half believe the desertion, the abduction, the accident. Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't
and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown. Perhaps fantasy is what you fill up maps with rather than saying that they too contain the unknown. — Rebecca Solnit

Not only these were new kinds of stories, they were being told with a new kind of formal structure. [...] The result was a storytelling architecture you could picture as a colonnade - each episode a brick with its own solid, satisfying shape, but also part of a season-long arc that, in turn, would stand linked to other seasons to form a coherent, freestanding work of art. [...] The new structure allowed huge creative freedom: to develop characters over long stretches of time, to tell stories over the course of fifty hours or more, the equivalent of countless movies. — Brett Martin

Always tell us where we are. And don't just tell us where something is, make it pay off. Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character. Look at the openings of Fitzgerald stories, and Graham Greene, they're great at this. — Janet Fitch

When my sister and I were very young, my father used to tell us fairy stories that he'd made up. My mother was always telling him that he should write them down, but he would say, 'Well, they've all been done before. There are so many blooming books in the world - why should I write another one?' — Nicolas Roeg

It is incredibly difficult to resist our desire to form narratives, to tell stories even if they may not be altogether correct, or correct at all. We like simplicity. We like concrete reasons. We like causes. We like things that make intuitive sense (even if that sense happens to be wrong) — Anonymous

You can't tell stories and really walk in someone's shoes and not have a love for them, even if they're doing horrible things. — Shonda Rhimes

Our memories are what make us who we are. Some are real. Some are made up. But they are the stories that tell us who we are. Without them we are nobody. — Clare Furniss

I've done so many movies with first-time directors, and honestly I just go with gut instinct. People that usually can tell me a good story, and talk to me about why the movie is the movie they want to make. I just go with my gut. — Neal H. Moritz

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

People have to tell their stories, Elsa. Or they suffocate. — Fredrik Backman

Why are so many of us enspelled by myths and folk stories in this modern age? Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? I think it's because these stories are not just fantasy. They're about real life. We've all encountered wicked wolves, found fairy godmothers, and faced trial by fire. We've all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another. We've all had to learn to tell friend from foe and to be kind to crones by the side of the road ... — Terri Windling

That's why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they're blue in the face and not get it. — Eugene H. Peterson

There was one knight," said Meera, "in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one." "Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure." "No," said Bran. "I haven't. And if I have it doesn't matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to — George R R Martin

Science can't predict what stories my children's great grandchildren will tell. The ultimate story about the experience of our journey into consciousness is a closed book to theologians and scientists alike, but it is not a book without promise. At this point we've barely cracked the introduction, and already smartass scientists and theologians pretend they know not just how the story started but how it ends - and worse - what it means or doesn't mean. — Frank Schaeffer

What I love about what I get to do is that I'm allowed to create the stories that I want to tell with minimal interference by some very big corporations like Microsoft and Sprint and EA and BioWare. The advantage that these tech companies have is that they understand the space organically, versus traditional media companies. — Felicia Day

Those type of people [in New Orleans] keep me happy and just smiling, you know? I just go hang out and talk with them and they tell me all types of old stories, and sometimes I might even pull my horn out in the middle of the block, and they're playing on beer bottles and different things, and we just do a little second line type thing, just us, four or five people, who are just having fun. That makes me day to be able to do that and go hang out with the people in the (Treme) neighborhood, and to do some shows around town, you know? — Troy Andrews

I came from a family where, you know, we sat down at the table every night, and you better have a story to tell. My father never wrote his stories down. And you know, I learned that they went farther if you wrote them down. — Ruth Reichl

Listen carefully, be transparent, be responsive, be authentic, tell great stories-the qualities that would make you the hotshot at a party-and they'll make your organization a likeable one on social networks. — Dave Kerpen

No, I'm talking about the famine of stories and songs. They killed all the storytellers who tried to tell them about the Son of the Thundercloud. They killed hope. — Easterine Kire

Everybody goes through a lot of the same things, and I talk about those, and that's the key. You have to connect with your audience, and I might take them on a trip with me, tell them I went here and I went there and they'll go with me, you know, to hear the stories. — Chris Tucker

My parents sent me to a school across town, an integrated school, where I had the chance to meet and grow up with people who were from other parts of the world ... I remember feeling that I would never have anything to contribute on St. Patrick's Day. I couldn't tell the stories that they might have been telling about their forebears and I felt left out. — Isabel Wilkerson

I tell stories so only the independents do that and they don't pay you that much. I'd rather do TV or an HBO movie. — Penny Marshall

People come up to me and tell me how I changed their life and I've inspired them. And they tell me their stories, and that keeps me going. — Valerie Bertinelli

One day, you muster the courage and let go of the fear. In a brief moment of insanity, you give wings to the stories you had wanted to tell; some you didn't even know were in you. In that instant, something about you changes. You are born again.

That is not to say the fear and worry and second-guessing go away. They are there. But you learn to cope with them. You learn that they don't control you at all times. In those fleeting moments of freedom, you have the power. You know you are not perfect. You realize no one was born perfect. No one. Rome wasn't built in a day either.
A weird thing happens when you get a glimpse of that side of you. A child-like zeal possesses you. It is addictive. You discover your voice. You matter. Maybe not to the world, yet. You matter to yourself. You are worthy. You are alive. You can be. — K.J. Kilton

[The truth] is what actually happens. Not what you want to happen. Not what you're afraid will happen. We make up stories when we want things to happen or are afraid they may happen. And sometimes we do it for fun-or to scare people or make them do our way or to hurt them. And sometimes we do it because it's a pretty story and we tell it just as we fly a kite or send balloons floating. — Lillian Smith

We tell specific stories about ourselves to ourselves and we're all the heroes of our own lives. But you live through certain experiences with other people, and sometimes they have very different takes on what happened. — James Franco

Lounging on his side, he tipped his head back. "So, you slept like a little baby Apollyon last night. I wonder why."

I glared at him. Seth had stayed the night again. "I loathe you."

He chuckled. "You reluctantly like me."

"Whatever. So are you going to tell me why you're always with Lucian? Is he a part of your little fan club now?"

"My fans love to hear my war stories." He jumped to his feet, swinging at me. "They're obsessed with me. What can I say? I'm that cool. And I'm not always with Lucian. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Stories are at the very heart of being human; they talk
about where we're from, where we are, and where we're going.
They're like bread; you need to hear and tell them everyday. — Bill Harley

Most of what I want to try to do is continue to go places with fiction that I've never gone before, and tell stories I've never told before, and one of the problems you rapidly discover about fans is what fans want is the last thing they liked. They want more of that. — Neil Gaiman

What's so valuable about HBO is they tell stories. We learn from stories. — Gloria Steinem

There are certain bits of stories that, because of their nature, are rather dull. This is because very little happens in them. And for some reason, they also always happen to take place over a rather tediously long period of time. So, yes, I could tell you of the five-hour trek Timothy and Alex took to reach the hidden bay. I could tell you that when they reached the fort, the view was rather impressive. I could also mention that Timothy lost his footing at one point as they made their way through the thick forest on the other side and, had Alex not grabbed the back of his jacket, his tale would have ended there rather abruptly.
But honestly ...
Let's just get to the pirate stuff already. — Adrienne Kress

If any writer in this country has collected as fine and passionate a group of readers as I have, they're fortunate and lucky beyond anyone's imagination. It remains a shock to me that I've had a successful writing career. Not someone like me; Lord, there were too many forces working against me, too many dark currents pushing against me, but it somehow worked. Though I wish I'd written a lot more, been bolder with my talent, more forgiving of my weaknesses, I've managed to draw a magic audience into my circle. They come to my signings to tell me stories, their stories. The ones that have hurt them and made their nights long and their lives harder. — Pat Conroy

But is the commercial theory of learning true? Daniel Anderson says that new research suggests that children actually don't like commercials as much as we thought they did because commercials don't tell stories, and stories have a particular salience and importance to young people. — Malcolm Gladwell

You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you're right, because in many ways this is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honour when they applaud the tale you tell. — Orson Scott Card

As a child in Sydney, my German Mum and my Austrian Dad would spontaneously tell me stories about what they saw and what they did as children. It was like a piece of Europe coming into our house ... Those stories led me to my writing. — Markus Zusak

When I was about twenty-one, I published a few poems. Maybe I wrote a couple of stories before, but I really began to write stories in my mid-thirties. My kids were still little, and they were in school and day care, and I had begun to think a lot about wanting to tell some stories and not being able to do it in poetry. — Grace Paley

Join with those who sing songs, tell stories, enjoy life ... because happiness is contagious. Join those who walk with their heads high even when they have tears in their eyes. Avoid those who ... have never shed a tear — Paulo Coelho

One more nice thing about short stories is that you can create a story out of the smallest details -an idea that springs up in your mind, a word, an image, whatever. In most cases it's like jazz improvisation, with the story taking me where it wants to. And another good point is that with short stories you don't have to worry about failing. If the idea doesn't work out the way you hoped it would, you just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that they can't all be winners. Even with masters of the genre like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver -even Anton Chekhov- not every short story is a masterpiece. I find this a great comfort. You can learn from your mistakes (in other words, those you can't call complete success) and use that in the next story you write. — Haruki Murakami

Tell them stories. They need the truth you must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories. — Philip Pullman

Frankly, Django is an American story that needs to be told, when you think of slavery existing in this country for 245 years. In slave narratives there were all types of tales and drama and heroism and pain and love that happened during that time. That's rich material for drama! Everyone complains that there are no new stories left to tell. Not true, there are a whole bunch of them, and they're all American with a capital A. — Quentin Tarantino

Stories are like DNA, they shape the culture that they're a part of. A society is not a society without its own unique stories. But we allow machines to make our stories, nowadays, or at least to tell them. We allow things to shape our understanding of who we are. We are entertained, not nurtured. We are given Twinkies for our mind, things that amuse but do not enlighten. It tickles our taste buds, but it does not enrich us. — James Rozoff

[There's] a joke that I've done forever: 'Nowadays they say that the largest majority of people will be Latino and you'll tell scary stories to your grandkids: "A long time ago when I was growing up, there used to be people who were white," and the kid says, "Really?" and you say, "Yeah, like the man who cuts our grass."' I've had that line forever and I love it. — George Lopez

When it's one animal, you really do have a tougher time because you've gotta commit to story structures that maybe are difficult to find the range in the animal to tell those stories. There are only so many things they do, if they're living in the natural world, that we can appreciate. There are plenty of things that they do that we don't appreciate. — David Douglas

I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music. — Yo-Yo Ma

I think at a certain point actors need to start taking responsibility for the kinds of stories they want to tell. — Jason Ritter

Oh, this absolute loneliness and the game - loving to play the game, loving to go and tell stories to men that certainly weren't true, just for the sport of it, just to see how they would react. — Jennifer Beals

If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything. — Sherman Alexie

All writers write about themselves, just as the old storytellers chose to tell stories that spoke to and about themselves. They call it the world, but it is themselves they portray. The world of which they write is like a mirror that reflects the inside of their hearts, often more truly than they know. — Jane Yolen

In fact, our bodies are never the same--each minute, they undergo changes, even if imperceptible. Eisenstein (2001, 40-41) points out that we have many bodies, which influence our accounts of reality: 'Writing from the body, my body, my different bodies, I have different stories to tell. They are all all of a piece although they are also fragmentary as through each body experience has its own narration (13). — Barbara Sutton

I have an idea about building almost like a studio for some of the best Tropfest filmmakers, so they can come together and support and be given space and resources they need to tell great stories year around, so it's not just about the festivals. You know, the sky's the limit with this thing, and I'm still making it up as I go along. — John Polson

For 6,000 years, these rules have been unquestionably right. And yet we break them every day. People feel that something is wrong in life. There is some kind of atmosphere that makes people now turn to other values. They want to contemplate the basic questions of life, and that is probably the real reason for wanting to tell these stories. — Krzysztof Kieslowski

We all have stories we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves we are too fat, too ugly, or too old, or too foolish. We tell ourselves these stories because they allow us to excuse our actions, and they allow us to pass off the responsibility for things we have done-maybe to something within our control, but anything other than the decisions we have made. — Eleanor Brown

I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them. — Isabel Allende

The bible must be seen in a cultural context. It didn't just happen. These stories are retreads. But, tell a Christian that
No, No! What makes it doubly sad is that they hardly know the book, much less its origins. — Isaac Asimov

In families there is always the mythology. My father died when my kids were quite young still, and yet they still tell his stories. That is how a person lives on. — Jessica Lange

When you tell a story you automatically talk about traditions, but they're never separate from the people, the human implications. You're talking about your connections as a human being. — Gayl Jones

Stories are different every time you tell them - they allow so many possible narratives. — David Antin

Liar! I know that you humans build your life in lies. It starts with your mortal lords and their fabricated gods. They use fictitious stories to impregnate the minds of people, and like herds of sheep they do as their told. With manipulation alone is enough to secure their reign. After all, is it not in your nature to be wanted and purposeful? It is such an easy game to play. I have observed this falsehood accepted by fathers and mothers over and over again. The idiocy becomes one with their children, and they become the infrastructure that not only sedates but corrodes the soul with instructed conformity. In the end, lies are all that you are. — H.S. Crow

The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons, but children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed. — G.K. Chesterton

Don't be constantly selling and shilling. Figure out how you can help others, tell them stories, and share openly everything you know so that people will recognize you as someone that they can trust, who won't turn them off by constantly trying to sell them something. — C.C. Chapman

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it's moorings or orientation ... Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger. — Ben Okri

The writing can be its own reward, as you discover more things that you can do. It counts a lot, though, when a story connects with a reader and they take the time to tell me about it. — Nick Earls

To figure out what people think, look at the stories that they tell. We might never get away from the image of Sheldon from 'The Big Bang Theory' breaking down in the middle of the store, not knowing which console to buy, but we can see in TV and movies how regular characters are more and more starting to play games. — Rob Manuel

A three-year-old with insomnia is very similar to a heroin addict going through withdrawal. There is nothing that calms them. They can't focus. You can't tell them enough stories. They don't understand why they are still awake four hours past their bedtime. This is commonly understood by all parents of three-year-olds and has inspired great works of literature, such as Go the F-ck to Sleep. — Jim Gaffigan

Without a best friend to tell stories to, it almost didn't matter if they even happened. — Leila Howland

My cousin Helen, who is in her 90s now, was in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. She and a bunch of the girls in the ghetto had to do sewing each day. And if you were found with a book, it was an automatic death penalty. She had gotten hold of a copy of 'Gone With the Wind', and she would take three or four hours out of her sleeping time each night to read. And then, during the hour or so when they were sewing the next day, she would tell them all the story. These girls were risking certain death for a story. And when she told me that story herself, it actually made what I do feel more important. Because giving people stories is not a luxury. It's actually one of the things that you live and die for. — Neil Gaiman

I wonder how, among the Fremont, mothers and daughters shared their world. Did they walk side by side along the lake edge? What stories did they tell while weaving strips of bulrush into baskets? How did daughters bury their mothers and exercise their grief? What were the secret rituals of women? I feel certain they must have been tied to birds. — Terry Tempest Williams

Storytelling, you know, has a real function. The process of the storytelling is itself a healing process, partly because you have someone there who is taking the time to tell you a story that has great meaning to them. They're taking the time to do this because your life could use some help, but they don't want to come over and just give advice. They want to give it to you in a form that becomes inseparable from your whole self. That's what stories do. Stories differ from advice in that, once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you."

~Alice Walker, in an interview about her work in Common Boundary, 1990 — Alice Walker

What a different story men would have to tell if only they would adopt a DEFINITE PURPOSE, and stand by that purpose until it had time to become an all-consuming obsession! — Napoleon Hill

I like making films about old people because they are repositories of amazing stories that they tell well. And they're incredibly good telly. — Ian Hislop

Serving [Hamilton's] legacy didn't just mean commemorating him, though: It also meant continuing his work. [Eliza] crusaded against slavery, as Hamilton had. And this widow of an orphan helped to found the first private orphanage in New York. That's the real power of a legacy: We tell stories of people who are gone because like any powerful stories, they have the potential to inspire, and to change the world. — Jeremy McCarter

That's what they tell you noise is, random energy, chaotic energy . . . It's the stuff that's not data, that's not information, that's not REAL. A thing that's what it's NOT and not what it IS. Noise is chaos. But chaos is continuity. . . . There are stories in the noise. — James W. Blinn

My life has been about living like a monk and looking like a priest so that people will come up to me and tell me their most appalling stories. They have to make their confession to somebody, and it might as well be me. — Chuck Palahniuk

But books were full of stories and stories were full of lies and lies hurt Jesus's feelings, so I didn't know what to think. I blamed my family. They were the ones who taught me so much about telling stories, and how not to do it, and then, in inspired moments of surprise, how to tell one so good you forgot what day it was, and I liked forgetting what day it was, so I made certain life choices that would allow me to get paid to forget what day it was and teach others to forget what day it was, which is, after all, what I think heaven probably is: the whole world, forgetting what day it is. You have to, I bet, with an endless supply of them. — Harrison Scott Key

My family, they're story tellers. My mom is Irish, and my dad is Italian. In my family, we weren't allowed to watch TV while we ate - we had to sit around the table and tell stories about our day. — Meg Cabot

I always write three or four projects at the same time. They're stories that I want to tell, and usually I dump them unfinished for the next one in order not to get too cornered and depressed about it. — Pawel Pawlikowski

The brilliant creative core of capitalism ... is the story the entrepreneurs and capital investors tell themselves about the future. How they intend to alter it, what they expect to gain in return, where they will raise the capital to accomplish their vision. Many of their stories turn out to be flawed or mistaken, of course, but the capacity to envision a set of future events and then act to fulfill them is a central source of capitalism's strength and its dominance of society. — William Greider

Read a lot. Read broadly ... Tell stories to your friends, and pay attention to when they get bored ... Write a lot. — John Green

You can tell it any way you want, he said, you can be I or he or she or we or they or you and you won't be lying, though you might be telling two stories at once. — China Mieville

There are stories - legends, really - of the "steady job." Old-timers gather graduates around the flickering light of a computer monitor and tell stories of how the company used to be, back when a job was for life, not just for the business cycle. ... The graduates snicker. A steady job! They've never heard of such a thing. — Max Barry

I became a reporter because I never found out the ending to my own story. Thirty years after Ben's abduction, the only answers I could find were for others, the victims, or those they left behind. The crime beat was a natural for me. The people I wrote about were the most fragile, the most broken, and they needed the most answers. I pieced together the frayed strands that had once been their lives, not always happy, but better off than where they ended up. I had to tell their stories. I felt like I owed the victims at least that...Julia Gooden, THE LAST TIME SHE SAW HIM — Jane Haseldine

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. — Anne Lamott

You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done.
Here is the truth: It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don't die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do.You can tell yourself all the stories you want, but you can't leave your actions over there. You can't build a wall and expect to live on the other side of memory. All of the poison seeps back into our soil. — Megan K. Stack

But even if they could go home it would be difficult for me to tell you what the moral of the story is. In some stories, it's easy. The moral of "The Three Bears," for instance, is "Never break into someone else's house." The moral of "Snow White" is "Never eat apples." The moral of World War One is "Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand." [ ... ] and as the Baudelaire orphans sat and watched the dock fill with people as the business of the day began, they figured out something that was very important to them. It dawned on them that unlike Aunt Josephine, who had lived up in that house, sad and alone, the three children had one another for comfort and support over the course of their miserable lives. And while this did not make them feel entirely safe, or entirely happy, it made them feel appreciative. — Lemony Snicket

The happiness of the South was very formidable. It was an almost invincible happiness. It defied you to call it anything else. Everyone was in fact happy. The women were beautiful and charming. The men were healthy and successful and funny; they knew how to tell stories. They had everything the North had and more. They had a history, they had a place redolent with memories, they had good conversation, they believed in God and defended the Constitution, and they were getting rich in the bargain. They had the best of victory and defeat. Their happiness was aggressive and irresistible. — Walker Percy

Like many others who have gone into prisons and jails with us, Chuck and Carol Middlekauff demonstrate what our ministry is all about. We train Christian 'teammates' to share the good news and love of Christ with 'the least of these' so they can continue to do it with others they encounter as they go along. In this book, Carol has written the stories of some of those encounters so you can appreciate how easy it is to tell people about Jesus. It happens when you realize God does all the work, and all you have to do is show up. I hope you will be encouraged by reading the book and then join us soon for a Weekend of Champions to find out for yourself."
Bill Glass, retired NFL all-pro defensive end, evangelist, founder of Bill Glass Champions for Life prison ministries, and author of numerous books, including The Healing Power of a Father's Blessing and Blitzed by Blessings — Bill Glass

Some stories, some people, deserve their length and span. They merit a novel-length treatment, have things to tell and other lives to illuminate. — Michael Marshall Smith

All stories have a curious and even dangerous power. They are manifestations of truth
yours and mine. And truth is all at once the most wonderful yet terrifying thing in the world, which makes it nearly impossible to handle. It is such a great responsibility that it's best not to tell a story at all unless you know you can do it right. You must be very careful, or without knowing it you can change the world. — Vera Nazarian

Well, don't say I didn't warn you. You've never been on the receiving end of one of his tirades." "They can't possibly be any worse than my brother's." "What, that lovely sweet man who sat at my bar telling funny stories all the afternoon? Don't tell me he has a temper?" "Fire and brimstone," I affirmed. "In biblical proportions. — Susanna Kearsley

Stories are told to make you feel something, and they can tell ours over and over again, and every time it will be something different. — A.C. Gaughen

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

History belongs to she who holds the pen ... If we don't tell our stories, they won't be told. — Julianne Malveaux

Stories," she blurted. "The mosaic told stories, didn't it?"
"Yes, old ones."
"I'll tell them to you."
His eyes cracked open. He didn't remember closing them. "You know those tales?"
"Yes."
She didn't. This became clear as she began to tell them. She knew bits and pieces, cobbled together in ways that would have made him smile if smiling didn't hurt. "You," he breathed, "are such a faker."
"Don't interrupt."
Mostly pure invention. She remembered the images--it pleased him, how vividly she knew the temple floor's details. Which god curled around which, or how the snake's tongue forked into three. But the stories she told had little to do with his religion. Sometimes they didn't even make sense.
"Do this again," he said, "when I have strength to laugh."
"As bad as that?"
"Mmm. Maybe not. For a Valorian. — Marie Rutkoski

I love old books. They tell you stories about their use. You can see where the fingerprints touched the pages as they held the book open. You can see how long they lingered on each page by the finger stains. — Jack Bowman

We gathered up the kids and sat up on the hill. We had no time to get our chickens and no time to get our horses out of the corral. The water came in and smacked against the corral and broke the horses' legs. The drowned, and the chickens drowned. We sat on the hill and we cried. These are the stories we tell about the river," said [Ladona] Brave Bull Allard. The granddaughter of Chief Brave Bull, she told her story at a Missouri River symposium in Bismark, North Dakota, in the fall of 2003.

Before The Flood, her Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lived in a Garden of Eden, where nature provided all their needs. "In the summer, we would plant huge gardens because the land was fertile," she recalled. We had all our potatoes and squash. We canned all the berries that grew along the river. Now we don't have the plants and the medicine they used to make. — Bill Lambrecht

Your grandmother was not teaching me how to behave in class. She was teaching me how to ruthlessly interrogate the subject that elicited the most sympathy and rationalizing
myself. Here was the lesson: I was not innocent. My impulses were not filled with unfailing virtue. And feeling that I was human as anyone, this must be true for other humans. If I was not innocent, then they were not innocent. Could this mix of motivation also affect the stories they tell? The cities they built? The country they claimed as given to them by God? — Ta-Nehisi Coates