Tell Your Own Story Quotes & Sayings

Everybody loves a good story, but good storytelling doesn't come easy to everybody. It's a skill that takes a lifetime to master. So study the great stories and then go find some of your own. Your stories will get better the more you tell them. — Austin Kleon

When you look into the faces of these quiet creatures who don't know how to tell stories
who are mute, who can't make themselves heard, who fade into the woodwork, who only think of the perfect answer after the fact, after they're back at home, who can never think of a story that anyone else will find interesting
is there not more depth and more meaning in them? You can see every letter of every untold story swimming on their faces, and all the signs of silence, dejection, and even defeat. You can even imagine your own face in those faces, can't you? — Orhan Pamuk

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Hence the necessity of getting off the merry-go-round too figure out what is really going on and let your sad feelings tell their own sometimes weird, complex, and long-winded story. — Frederick Woolverton

You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you. — Seanan McGuire

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

Tell the story that's in your heart. Write for your own pleasure, not anyone else's. Then, if and when you're ready, find a reputable editor who will be honest with you about the quality of your book and your chances of publication. But never, ever, stop enjoying writing or you will be lost — Jane Cable

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself.. The pictures get jumbled, you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed. — Tim O'Brien

I've always believed that as an author, I do 50% of the work of storytelling, and the reader does the other 50%. There's no way I can control the story you tell yourself from my book. Your own experiences, preferences, prejudices, mood at the moment, current events in your life, needs and wants influence how you read my every word. — Shannon Hale

How to avoid cliche at the root of conception? Practice sincerity. If we've come by ... material honestly, through our own personal experience or imagination, we may rightly claim it as our own ... The way to make material your own is to look for it in yourself ... It should be a story that only you can tell, as only you can tell it. — Peter Selgin

Whenever he told the story, Rat had a tendency to stop now and then, interrupting the flow, inserting little clarifications or bits of analysis and personal opinion. It was a bad habit, Mitchell Sanders said, because all that matters is the raw material, the stuff itself, and you can't clutter it up with your own half-baked commentary. That just breaks the spell. It destroys the magic. What you have to do, Sanders said, is trust your own story. Get the hell out of the way and let it tell itself. — Tim O'Brien

You are the storyteller and the editor of your book of life. So write tales of imagination, tragedy, and adventure and illustrate it with the colors of beauty. — Debasish Mridha

It's very healing,' he said, 'to tell yourself your own story as though you were reciting a myth. — Frank Delaney

To me, having the courage to tell your own story goes hand in hand with having the curiosity and humility to listen to others' stories. — Sarah Kay

Some women get erased a little at a time, some all at once. Some reappear. Every woman who appears wrestles with the forces that would have her disappear. She struggles with the forces that would tell her story for her, or write her out of the story, the genealogy, the rights of man, the rule of law. The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt. — Rebecca Solnit

I feel strongly against professionalism, against someone's feeling he has to write a book every year to keep his name before the public. I see people processing themselves, torturing themselves, for that, rather than writing out of a compulsion some story from their own experience, their own feelings. That's the way you should write, unless you are just practicing. I tell young writers to steal a plot or an idea or whatever, just to get going. See how a character comes out, how you fit it into your life . . . You see great writers doing it too. — Peter Taylor

I believe that everybody needs to tell their story - to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be understood. We all want that, deep down inside - and writing a book is a great way to make sense of your own experience and to share it with others. — Shakti Gawain

Because who knows? Who knows anything? Who knows who's pulling the strings? Or what is? Or how? Who knows if destiny is just how you tell yourself the story of your life? Another son might not have heard his mother's last words as a prophecy but as drug-induced gibberish, forgotten soon after. Another girl might not have told herself a love story about a drawing her brother made. Who knows if Grandma really thought the first daffodils of spring were lucky or if she just wanted to go on walks with me through the woods? Who knows if she even believed in her bible at all or if she just preferred a world where hope and creativity and faith trump reason? who knows if there are ghosts (sorry, Grandma) or just the living, breathing memories of your loved ones, inside you, speaking to you, trying to get your attention by any means necessary? Who knows where the hell Ralph is? (Sorry, Oscar.) No one knows.
SO we grapple with the mysteries, each in our own way. — Jandy Nelson

We are all the heroes of our own stories, and on of the arts of perspective is to see yourself small on the stage of another's story, to see the vast expanse of the world that is not about you, and to see your power, to make your life, to make others, or break them, to tell stories rather that be told by them. — Rebecca Solnit

But this, all this, isn't the story I'm trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people's stories and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you're still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that's what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on, and we're the stories we're living now.
Aren't we? — Patrick Ness

If you tell the story you will live the story. If you live the story you have to own the story. If you dont like the story your living, stop telling it. — Virginia Johnston-Dodds

Search your own life for the story only you can tell. The best thing about writing from life is that you can be sure of using original material. And no research is needed beyond the time you spend looking deep inside your own heart. — Elizabeth Held Forsyth

To name the world in your own terms, to tell your own story, is an act of authority and power. When you write, you are saying, in effect, 'I have a voice. I have a story. This is what I have to say.' — Rebecca McClanahan

If you tell your own story to your children - that includes your positive moments and your negative moments, and how you overcame them - you give your children the skills and the confidence they need to feel like they can overcome some hardship that they've felt. — Bruce Feiler

Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe ... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is ... just ... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope. — Greg Behrendt

I don't want to tell what the songs are about for me, because then people can't decide for themselves, which is why I write; it's for you to find your own meaning in. For me it's my story, for someone else it's theirs; if I tell exactly what it means, then it's only my story. — Brian Fallon

My daughter Penelope has just looked over my shoulder to see what I have done so far. She remarks that it is beautifully written, and every word of it true. But she points out one objection. She says what I have done so far isn't in the least what I was wanted to do. I am asked to tell the story of the Diamond and, instead of that, I have been telling the story of my own self. Curious, and quite beyond me to account for. I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books, ever find their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like me? If they do, I can feel for them. In the meantime, here is another false start, and more waste of good writing-paper. What's to be done now? Nothing that I know of, except for you to keep your temper, and for me to begin it all over again for the third time. — Wilkie Collins

There is in this valley a beating heart. It is always and ever there. And when I am gone, it will beat for you and when you are gone, it will beat for your children and theirs, forever. Forever. Until there is no water, no air, no green in the spring or gold in the autumn, no stars in the sky or wind from the north. And when you cannot speak, it will speak for you. When you cannot see, it will be your eyes. When you cannot remember, it will be your memory. It will never forget you. And when you cannot be faithful, it will save a place for your return. This is a gift to you. It cannot be taken away. It is yours forever. It is the narrative of this world, and the scrapbook of your own small life, and, when you are gone into ash and darkness and the grave, it will tell your story. — Robert Goolrick

The best time to tell your story is when you have to tell your story. When it's not really a choice. But then, when you get that first, messy, complicated version down, you have to read it over and be very tough on yourself and ask, 'Well what's the story here?' If you're lucky enough to have someone you trust looking over your shoulder, he or she can help you if [you] lack perspective on your own story. — Jeannette Walls

I will tell you a story," Schmendrick said. "As a child I was apprenticed to the mightiest magician of all, the great Nikos, whom I have spoken of before. But even Nikos, who could turn cats into cattle, snowflakes into snowdrops, and unicorns into men, could not change me into so much as a carnival cardsharp. A last he said to me, 'My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to work backwards at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom. — Peter Beagle

Begin ... where you are, NOT where you want to be. Begin stuck in the doldrums of your false story
if that is where you are. Begin there because, in truth, there is no other place to start from. Tell yourself that you are going to listen for the sound of your own voice
and remind yourself when you forget. And you will forget, over and over again. — Florence Falk

Before you know it you'll be my age telling your own granddaughter the story of your life and you wanna make it an interesting one, don't you? You wanna be able to tell her some adventures, some excitements, some something. How you live your life, little one, is a gift for those who come after you, a kind of inheritance. — Cristina Garcia

Tell your own story, and you will be interesting. — Louise Bourgeois

When telling the story of your life, it is of great value to recognize and focus on the details that reveal or inspire an empowered unfolding of your being. Much like rewriting your own DNA, every aspect of your life and growth will emanate from the building blocks of your history - however you choose to tell it. This is not to suggest that you should deny or bury your mistakes, traumas or misfortunes, but rather, recognize and reveal them within an empowered context of a bigger picture. — Scott Edmund Miller

Every story you tell is your own story. — Joseph Campbell

The best story to tell your kids is that of your own family. — Lauren Machta

But really, it's probably just easiest to keep doing what I'm doing. You know how it goes. At first it's just for the time being, until you can get your own story together, be the hero in something of your own. You tell people it's your day job, you tell yourself it's your day job, and then, at some point, without you noticing, it stops being your day job and just becomes your job. — Charles Yu

You are your own hero. Do not wait for someone to save you, rescue you or tell you that you are ok. Be the hero of your own story and never, ever let them make you the victim. — John Goode

If you change the way you tell your own story, you can change the colour and create a life in technicolour. — Isabel Allende

Everything has changed, but the process of telling a story has not changed. It's like cavemen sitting around the fire; somebody's going to tell the story. Somebody is drawing on the wall. You're communicating. You're trying to learn and teach at the same time. You're your own student and you're your own teacher, but the process is of the communicating. — Stanley Kubrick

How old are you, son?' Whitman asked.

'Going on seventeen.'

'So young,' he said, stroking the back of my hand with his poem-stained fingers. 'How did you come to lose your eye?'

I told him the story of my heroism, with embellishments--told it so well, I was nearly persuaded of my exceptional character.

'You sacrificed what little you had to call your own for democracy, freedom, and human dignity. You gave an eye, half of man's greatest blessing, when rich men up north paid a small price to keep themselves and their sons from harm.'

With those few words, accompanied by a glance that seemed to measure the dimensions of my meager existence, Whitman made me see myself as a sacrifice on the altar of wealth, but a hero notwithstanding. — Norman Lock

You need to write your own book, the book of your heart and not chase the fads. It truly has to be the story you want to tell, it needs that fire, your fire in it. Then enjoy the time pre-publication. It is time to learn all you can about your craft and the industry. It isn't a race. Finally listen to your work. I have text to voice software that reads the books to me. Listening I can hear things that I would miss on the page. — Liz Fenwick

It's important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story — Iyanla Vanzant

I thought to myself then that it didn't matter where I ended up; I'd always be living that summer in that town, wishing that I;d done things differently, tormented by the fact that I hadn't. I'd never go far enough to be able to escape it. Maybe you're happy about that. OR maybe you're not. Maybe you're carrying your own regrets, and you understand how easy it is to let your life get away from you. I wish I could be the hero of this story, but I'm not. I'm just the one to tell it, at least my part in it- the story of Katie Mackey and the people who failed her. It's an old one, this tale of selfish desires and the lament that follows, as ancient as the story of Adam and Eve turned away forever from paradise. — Lee Martin

I think that's how you have to make films. You can't try to imitate or repeat. You have to make your own thing, tell the story that is in your own heart. — Maryann Brandon

The more you write, the more you find your voice. I think with my earlier stuff, when I was dabbling, it definitely wasn't there. I was writing like other people I admired. It wasn't until I had a story I had to tell that I could step into my own words. And maybe that's what it'll take for you. Maybe you just haven't had to tell those stories in your head. But the more practice on the stories you'd like to tell, the closer you get to the one you need. — Chessela Helm

Sometimes the hardest story to tell is your own — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story. — Billy Graham

Don't let anyone tell your story. Pick up a pen and write your own. — Majid Kazmi

Every film had its own grammar. And it's your job as a director to basically figure out a language to tell a story. — Darren Aronofsky

She'd always been comforted by how many words there were in the English language -- more than a million. With so many words surely anything could be said, everything could be understood.
But what did the volume of words matter in any language when she couldn't even manage to ask the simplest questions? Will you tell me your story? Will you let me in to my own family? Isn't it my story, too? — Fiona Wood

Tell your story: Yes, tell your story. Show your example. Tell everyone it's possible, and others shall feel the courage, to climb their own mountains. — Paulo Coelho

The way we construct consciousness is to tell the story of ourselves to ourselves, the story of who we believe we are. I feel that a really public shaming or humiliation is a conflict between the person trying to write his own narrative and society trying to write a different narrative for the person. One story tries to overwrite the other. And so to survive you have to own your story. Or . . .' Mike looked at me, '. . . you write a third story. You react to the narrative that's been forced upon you.' He paused. 'You have to find a way to disrespect the other narrative,' he said. 'If you believe it, it will crush you.' I — Jon Ronson

It is a miracle if you can find true friends, and it is a miracle if you have enough food to eat, and it is a miracle if you get to spend your days and evenings doing whatever it is you like to do, and the holiday season - like all the other seasons - is a good time not only to tell stories of miracles, but to think about the miracles in your own life, and to be grateful for them, and that's the end of this particular story. — Lemony Snicket

Churches should be places where people come to hear the story of God and to tell their own. That's how we find out how the two relate. Tell your story with all of its shadows and fog, so people can understand their own. They want a leader who's authentic, someone trying to figure out how to follow the Lord Jesus in the joy and wreckage of life. They need you, not Moses, — Angie Smith

Danae and Theano nodded but settled down more comfortably to hear their friend tell it once again. A story passed the time. A story took your thoughs far awar from your own troubles. A story could make you laugh or cry. it could fill you with wonder. And the stories you'd heard already were the best of all, because you knew there would be no disappointment at the end. There would be no unpleasant surprises. Of course, new stories that no one had told before were truly best of all, but they were rare, and hearing one for the first time was like coming across a scarlet flower you didn't recognise hidden in a crevice in the rocks. — Adele Geras

There is no right or wrong way to tell a story. You have to find your own way. You can get your idea from listening, looking, or imagining. Stories are everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention. — Kate DiCamillo

In fiction classes ... you find that epiphany has a pretty high rate of occurrence ... But when you tell your own story honestly, that epiphany thing is rare ... The only changes are emergencies or blessings: when you wake up, notice the surroundings, then fall back, and wander more. And if you're lucky you end up walking again through a life where you're never called on to do much noticing. — Darin Strauss

First of all, I had the desire for that format [silent movie], and then when I was talking to people, I felt that people needed justification. Why are you doing a silent movie? Is it just for your own pleasure? I felt it was not enough for them so I realized I have to choose the subject that will make things easier for them and to tell the story of a silent actor makes sense for doing a silent movie. — Michel Hazanavicius

I am one man with a laptop. When I give the world my characters, it's because I don't want to keep them for myself. You don't like what I made them do? Fucking tell me I'm wrong! Rewrite the story. Throw in a new plot twist. Make up your own ending. — J.C. Lillis

In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell. — Natalie Goldberg

Then it was you who wounded Aravis?"
"It was I."
"But what for?"
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own. — C.S. Lewis

But if you could read my thoughts, you would be welcome to come in
and listen to the story of my life. At least, you could slip your arm through
the bars and touch me and I will hold out my forepaw to greet you, after
retracting my claws, of course. You are carried away by appearances - my
claws and fangs and the glowing eyes frighten you no doubt. I don't blame
you. I don't know why God has chosen to give us this fierce make-up, the
same God who has created the parrot, the peacock, and the deer, which
inspire poets and painters. I would not blame you for keeping your distance
- I myself shuddered at my own reflection on the still surface of a pond
while crouching for a drink of water, not when I was really a wild beast, but
after I came under the influence of my Master and learnt to question, 'Who
am I?' Don't laugh within yourself to hear me speak thus. I'll tell you about
my Master presently. — R.K. Narayan

The idea for the Guild first came up at a party. Your father and I met there and, well, I suppose that's a story all its own. But we were both frustrated by the media at the time. We set out to tell the truth when everyone else seemed set on choosing sides. We had grand ideas about how far we could reach. ... Back then, we knew we should be careful, but we had no idea how dangerous it would turn out to be. — Sonny And Ais

Inspired by words you have to create images to tell the story, while it's much more difficult to find your own images with a film for inspiration, because someone has already done it for you. — Peter Lindbergh

People have been telling me I'm a failure and that I'm doing it all wrong for 20 years now. Never trust anybody when they tell you how your story goes. You know your story. You write your own story. — Kevin Smith

We all have our own stories. The story you tell about yourself, even if you only tell it to yourself, drives your actions and has a significant impact on your focus. — Mani S. Sivasubramanian

Tell your story: yes, tell your story! Give your example. Tell everyone that it's possible, and other people will then have the courage to face their own mountains. — Paulo Coelho

When anybody starts out with a memoir, you get the impulse to tell your own story with your own voice, and you get all that out in one fell swoop sometimes. — Dave Eggers

It could be seen as narcissistic to have your own museum, but for me, it's such a long time ago - I have perspective. That young man in the funny clothes - he's almost a stranger, so I can tell his story. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

No, listen. I've got it now. You meet a girl: shy, unassuming. If you tell her she's beautiful, she'll think you're sweet, but she won't believe you. She knows that beauty lies in your beholding." Bast gave a grudging shrug. "And sometimes that's enough."
His eyes brightened. "But there's a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you ... " Bast gestured excitedly. "Suddenly the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn't seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen. — Patrick Rothfuss