The Interesting Narrative Quotes & Sayings

It's interesting to think about the history of Israel in relation to the history of the U.S.. There were Native Americans living here that U.S. settlers totally displaced, and that narrative is not connected with the Isreal-Palestinian struggle at all. — Jill Soloway

I recently asked more than seventy eminent researchers if they would have done I their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: no. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome: the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions: improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. — Philip S. Skell

Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for
but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him. — Hunter S. Thompson

Tomorrow, you promise yourself, things will be different, yet, tomorrow is too often a repetition of today. And you disappoint yourself again and again. — James T. McCay

If I weren't a theatre designer, I wouldn't be any other kind of designer. Design is interesting to me as it relates to narrative: the design has to support the narrative. Storytelling is the most important thing. — Christine Jones

This crude, cowardly bargain seems not to have unduly bothered Hitler. If Mussolini was personally attracted to him, as Ciano said, by "something deeply rooted in his make-up," it might be said that the attraction was mutual, for the same mysterious reasons. Disloyal as he had been to some of his closest associates, a number of whom he had had murdered, such as Roehm and Strasser, Hitler maintained a strange and unusual loyalty to his ridiculous Italian partner that did not weaken, that indeed was strengthened when adversity and then disaster overtook the strutting, sawdust Roman Caesar. It is one of the interesting paradoxes of this narrative. — William L. Shirer

The canon is finished. Anyone who believes that one can construct a canon from the tidal wave of narrative produced today is guilty of wishful thinking. All we will have is a record of who won the prizes and achieved celebrity status. But, perhaps, the canon was always a fairly heavy-handed tool and little more than a convenience. The only thing is to follow one's nose and listen carefully to the way others talk about books, learn who's opinion takes you to interesting places. — Tim Parks

Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises; but with the sunset we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory. — George Stillman Hillard

I would like all newspapers to become workers' co-operatives. — Ken Livingstone

A sense of that kind of narrative movement that we experience online could have been in my mind easily, though not consciously. I do rely so much on my unconscious, the way I write my stuff the way I do. I let my unconscious work. I have better ideas that way and more interesting work. — Jennifer Egan

This was supposed to be the Presidential Suite," she said, gazing into the room at the holes in the wall.
well, even presidents get shot," I said.
I was just going to say that myself," she said, smiling. "But I didn't want to scare you."
I didn't know whether this was interesting
that we were both thinking the same gruesome thing
or even whether it was actually the case. Perhaps it was just rhetorical ESP: Kreskin's Guide to Etiquette. But even if it was true, that we were about to say the same thing, did this connect us in some deep private way? Or was it just a random obviousness shared between strangers? The deeper life between two people I had yet to read with confidence. It seemed a kind of vaporous text that kept revising its very alphabet. An exfoliating narrative, my professors would probably say. The paratext of the possible. — Lorrie Moore

...and I had a great curiosity to talk to the books, as I thought they did; and so to learn how all things had a beginning: for that purpose I have often taken up a book, and have talked to it, and then put my ears to it, when alone, in hopes it would answer me; and I have been very much concerned when I found it remained silent. — Olaudah Equiano

When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his cigarette into the fire.
"Well?" said he.
"Do you not find it interesting?"
"To a collector of fairy-tales. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Do people look the same when they get to heaven?" "I don't know. I don't think so." "Then how do people recognize each other?" "I don't know, sweetie." She sounded tired. "They just feel it. You don't need your eyes to love, right? You just feel it inside you. That's how it is in heaven. It's just love, and no one forgets who they love. — R.J. Palacio

The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners; but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader. — Edward Gibbon

Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential. — Brian Tracy

The work I did on 'Killing Kennedy' was very meticulous and, in some ways, actually tedious. It was hard work because there is so much known about John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. To try to distill that into a clear narrative that's interesting and tells two great stories was a real challenge. — Kelly Masterson

One of the more interesting challenges I face when doing research for my novels is to trace the lives of women who are vital to the narrative and try my best to give them back their voices. — Susanna Kearsley

The invisibility factor of women in this industry is not unlike the invisibility of girl geeks. We know we exist, but everyone else seems to think we're an enigma every time they get the notion to write about us and what we apparently want. What we want isn't any different than what anyone wants. Good stories. With characters we can relate to or identify with or that are interesting to read about. And we'd like to feel welcome, not the perpetual other. We don't want to feel excluded or like props in every narrative. We don't want or need every story to be about a girl character. But we'd like them to be treated with the same care and attention male characters are. And it is possible, even in male dominated narratives. — Mariah Huehner

It has always been something I could do, and it may seem odd that in my case I seem to create an interesting narrative and frustrate the reader's opportunities to follow it at every step. — Harry Mathews

I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it? — Sheldon Adelson

Tone is an interesting question because part of the inspiration of looking to song is that Geisel himself - when you think about his animated version of The Grinch - embraced the idea of using songs in unconventional ways, as part of conveying a narrative. The use of music, in this film, is very unconventional, which I love. — Christopher Meledandri

I've never been very interested in literary narrative in movies, it always seems an obligatory trait and the least interesting of all the things film can do. It forces us to look through the thing instead of at it, it teaches us to ignore our senses and look for meaning outside the immediate world of our experience. — Rick Alverson

I think if I am to win an Olympic medal I'll have to score like I did today. — Tom Daley

I think that this misses out on some of the interesting narrative realities, which is that it actually doesn't work very well, that eliminating diversity is actually a really good way to make a species and its individuals less robust. — Cory Doctorow

But mostly what we think of as the 'meaning' of life concerns the style of the private autobiography we each write and which records how we 'see' ourselves. Whether this autobiography reads as a narrative of progress in which difficulties are transcended, or is chaotic, is the test of whether one's life seems to be meaningful or not. Meaning is something we find, or fail to find, as we follow through this project. We can see how love figures here: love is a major theme, but how we see our experience of love depends upon our general thinking. If, for example, we work with extremely high expectations of love we impose a tragic style upon our self-perceptions: for our experience of love will always be seen under an aspect of failure - failure focused upon ourselves or others. Hence the more subtle our thinking about love, the more intelligently we discriminate ideals from reality, the more interesting our autobiography becomes. — John Armstrong

Hide the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden. — Robert Bresson

Thinking through how you find that intersection between individual, compelling human narratives and structural, systemic injustices - that's the place that's most interesting to me as a reporter. — Sarah Stillman

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can. — Samuel Adams

What frightened me most was, I could no longer believe in my own life as a story. Everyone needs a story, a part to play in order to avoid the realization that life is without significance. How else do any of us survive? It's what makes life bearable, even interesting. When it becomes neither, people say you've lost the plot. Or just lost it. — Amanda Craig

Moved through the days in peace and wonder, for his whole story had been told for the first time, and he found that he was still loved. — Andrew Peterson

I found that while it was interesting to travel around and take the photographs, I would find that I was more interested in the stories behind the photographs. I was more interested in narrative. — Joshua Marston

It is quite surreal having a film made about your life. The whole process of turning real life into drama is interesting in itself, but even more so when it is your own life being put into the narrative forge. — Heather Brooke

You must wake because your name awaits, and your blood is called. — N.D. Wilson