Word Story Quotes & Sayings

Two-thousand-word scenes/chapters are potato chip length. That is, if you are about to go to bed and you're reading a terrific novel and the scenes/chapters come in around two-thousand-word bites, you'll tell yourself that you'll read just one more chapter. But if the narrative is really moving after you finish one of these bites, you won't be able to help yourself reading another. If the Story is extremely well told, you'll just keep eating the potato chip scenes all through the night. — Shawn Coyne

It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it's tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russia Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.) I saw hundreds of them, cathedrals of ice, rubbed like salt licks; shipwrecks, polished from wear like marble steps at the Vatican; Lincoln Centers capsized and pockmarked; airplane hangars carved by Louise Nevelson; thirty-story buildings, impossibly arched like out of a world's fair; white, yes, but blue, too, every blue on the color wheel, deep like a navy blazer, incandescent like a neon sign, royal like a Frenchman's shirt, powder like Peter Rabbit's cloth coat, these icy monsters roaming the forbidding black. — Maria Semple

Exactly. You like me. The word you use was like. You'll find someone better than me. Someone you'll love and not just like. — Kristine Cuevas

Every word Martone sets down, finally, a choice that limits the universe, their trail across the page a fossil record of some life's life-story. — Michael Martone

Catholicism fascinated him, the contortions it put itself through to make ends meet. Father Murray had kept returning to the word 'despair.' There'd been a little (bizarre, Luke thought) linguistic diversion into Latin. Desperare, formed by the 'de' prefex, signifying the removal of or from, and 'sperare,' meaning to hope. The removal of hope. That was despair. The reasoning being that you couldn't live without hope. What Murray hadn't said (but what, along with the story of the suicide ghost, Luke remembered from childhood) was that despair was classified as a sin against the Holy Spirit. That was the perverse beauty of the religion: that your daughter could be raped and murdered and yourself still condemned for giving up hope. — Glen Duncan

The notion that we've made vast moral progress and are now a less violent species is belied by our awesome powers of destruction, our military might, police forces as well-armed as soldiers. Without the threat of such violent force behind it, all law would be meaningless. I prefer stories that remind us of that. At its core, history is a story of violence at work. It all comes down to the old saw that, however much you can gain with a kind word, you can gain more with a kind word and a gun. — James Carlos Blake

I am fat with love! Husky with ardor! Morbidly obese with devotion! A happy, busy bumblebee of marital enthusiasm. I positively hum around him, fussing and fixing. I have become a strange thing. I have become a wife. I find myself steering the ship of conversations- bulkily, unnaturally- just so I can say his name aloud. I have become a wife, I have become a bore, I have been asked to forfeit my Independent Young Feminist card. I don't care. I balance his checkbook, I trim his hair. I've gotten so retro, at one point I will probably use the word pocketbook, shuffling out the door in my swingy tweed coat, my lips red, on the way to the beauty parlor. Nothing bothers me. Everything seems like it will turn out fine, every bother transformed into an amusing story to be told over dinner. 'So I killed a hobo today, honey ... hahahaha! Ah, we have fun — Gillian Flynn

Let's pursue the visage of imagination — Munia Khan

When I was eight years old, I played a story game with my younger brother and sister to help them fall asleep. The 'word-story game' was where they would choose a word and I would create a story. Acting and directing are similar to this game, where I am given the words then I fill in the life of the characters. — Carson Grant

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. — Jeffrey Eugenides

STORY" is more than half of the word "HISTORY". And that's no accident. — Glenn Beck

Mrs. B's story is well-known but worth telling again. She came to the United States 77 years ago, unable to speak English and devoid of formal schooling. In 1937, she founded the Nebraska Furniture Mart with $500. Last year the store had sales of $200 million, a larger amount by far than that recorded by any other home furnishings store in the United States. Our part in all of this began ten years ago when Mrs. B sold control of the business to Berkshire Hathaway, a deal we completed without obtaining audited financial statements, checking real estate records, or getting any warranties. In short, her word was good enough for us. Naturally, I was delighted to attend Mrs. B's birthday party. After all, she's promised to attend my 100th. — Warren Buffett

WWI is a romantic war, in all senses of the word. An entire generation of men and women left the comforts of Edwardian life to travel bravely, and sometimes even jauntily, to almost certain death. At the very least, any story or novel about WWI is about innocence shattered in the face of experience. — Anita Shreve

All of us are partly living our story line the enemy offers us.
Most of us, perhaps, live in not a terribly evil place in the moralistic sense of the word. We simply live where busyness, or apathy, or struggle with circumstances that won't change occupies most of our energy. And the enemy is perfectly happy to leave us in such a place practicing our religion. — John Eldredge

We use the word 'synoptic' to talk about Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and it really means 'seeing together,' because they all have a similar perspective. Matthew and Luke - whoever wrote those Gospels - used Mark as a focus and as a basic story. So all of them have a lot in common. — Elaine Pagels

A 3K word story might well be done in some caffeine-and-nicotine-fuelled 36 hour session, and at the end of it, there'll be a few passes of editing required, but I basically have a polished draft. — Hal Duncan

This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent a winter with her lover in the country. This, of course, is the barest outline, and futile to discuss. It's as pointless as throwing birdseed on the ground while snow still falls fast. Who expects small things to survive when even the largest get lost? People forget years and remember moments. Seconds and symbols are left to sum things up: the black shroud over the pool. Love, in its shortest form becomes a word. — Ann Beattie

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace! — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Plays are about understanding what happens, what it means. If we just leaned into the story, for lack of a better word, it would still be a powerful story but, like delight, it might disappear an hour after you saw it. — Anna D. Shapiro

The Light in the Labyrinth is a beautifully written book, a gem. I savoured every word; words written with so much 'colour'. Even though I know the story of Queen Anne Boleyn, Dunn's perspective on her last days is missing in so many other books of the genre. Dunn gives grace to the history and an honest, and very compassionate look at Anne's last days. I cried in the end, shedding tears for the young Kate, Anne and her little Bess. I have not yet read a Tudor book that has moved me to tears, as this wonderful journey does. Dunn's dedication and research shines through in this unforgettable book, a book not just for young readers, but also for all." - Lara Salzano, avid Tudor reader. — Wendy J. Dunn

She hadn't written so much as a word of a story, but for the first time in a long time she felt she was inside a story of her own, and surely that was better yet. — Paul Murray

I decided to write Westerns because there was a terrific market for Westerns in the '50s. There were a lot of pulp magazines, like 'Dime Western' and '10 Story Western' that were still being published. The better ones paid two cents a word. And I thought, 'I like Westerns.' — Elmore Leonard

Gee-word?"
"Gods. What were you doin' the day they handed out brains, boy, anyway?"
"Someone was telling a story about stealing a tiger's balls, and I had to stop and find out how it ended. — Neil Gaiman

Love hurts because it holds hearts — Munia Khan

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

Sophia could just as well have gutted me. In Allah's name, I drank beer for you. I dismantled my entire value system of holding Allah's word above all for you. I reinterpreted my Islamic teachings to justify being with you. — Sam Wazan

When I first went public with my son Evan's story, I just planned to talk about the 'R' word - Recovery. But soon I was spending most my time talking about the 'V' word - vaccines. — Jenny McCarthy

The hassle over the word 'proof' boils down to one question: What constitutes proof? Does a UFO have to land at the River Entrance to the Pentagon, near the Joint Chiefs of Staff offices? Or is it proof when a ground radar station detects a UFO, sends a jet to intercept it, the jet pilot sees it, and locks on with his radar, only to have the UFO streak away at a phenomenal speed? Is it proof when a jet pilot fires at a UFO and sticks to his story even under the threat of court-martial? Does this constitute proof? — J.D. Gray

Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language - it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. — Brene Brown

I am thankful, of course, for the prize and thankful to God for each story, each idea, each word, each day. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

Do not fear the story you do not yet know or understand. Come to the Author of your life and the Word spoken for you, so that a new story can be written." Divine Possibilities — Patti Barone

The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page, a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence, falling in love could be achieved in a single word - a glance. The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained. — Ian McEwan

Plays are literature: the word, the idea. Film is much more like the form in which we dream - in action and images (Television is furniture). I think a great play can only be a play. It fits the stage better than it fits the screen. Some stories insist on being film, can't be contained on stage. In the end, all writing serves to answer the same question: Why are we alive? And the form the question takes - play, film, novel - is dictated, I suppose, by whether its story is driven by character or place. — Israel Horovitz

A hakawati is a teller of tales, myths, and fables. A storyteller, and entertainer. A troubadour of sorts, someone who earns his keep by beguiling an audience with yarns. Like the word "hekayah" story, fable, news, hakawati is derived from the Lebanese word "haki", which means talk or conversation. This suggests that in Lebanese the mere act of talking is storytelling. — Rabih Alameddine

The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. She'd been through too much, between my siters-I could not add to the weight. So instead, I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true. — Sarah Dessen

Rooted in the word 'history' is 'story.' And America's story is exceptional. It's amazing. Younger students should learn that we have always been and continue to be a land of immigrants - a land committed to bold new ideas. — Heidi Hayes Jacobs

The song is sad, heartbreaking even, and I'm overcome with frustration that I don't have a better word to describe it. It occurs to me then that Grandmother would. She'd have a whole story that would sound exactly like this song. — Emily Henry

Scripture offers the unique access to the story of redemption and then, in turn, funds tradition, reason and experience, as God's Word is remembered, experienced, and thought about. — Clark H. Pinnock

But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I," could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. — Ayn Rand

The picture alone, without the written word, leaves half the story untold. — James Lafferty

No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. — Roger Zelazny

People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story". — Ken Burns

The world was a grand confusion. Finally, when I was drunk, and my mind couldn't do what I wanted it to do, I went home. I would lie alone In the dark, feeling that I was a character in a story that had lost its plot."
Sann "Don't ever use the word tragedy again. You tell what happened, and let the reader say it's a tragedy. If you're crying, the reader won't. — Pete Hamill

I prefer the word 'journeyman' to 'journalist' because I think that certainly, when you hear a story, you want to hear certain facts. But I also think what makes a story interesting is the points of view expressed therein. — Jason Silva

His heart, he said, had been the guide of his intellect." "That is just what I would fain believe. But, O Wynnie! the pity of it if that story should not be true, after all!" "Ah, my love!" I cried, "that very word makes me surer than ever that it cannot but be true. Let us go on putting it to the hardest test; let us try it until it crumbles in our hands, - try it by the touchstone of action founded on its requirements. — George MacDonald

As soon as I saw tattoos as a way to tell your story, I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I totally get it.' So I got my first tattoo a couple of years ago, and it's the word 'hope' on my left arm. It has a couple of dots at the end for each of my kids. — Kristian Bush

One of the problems with all of this is that not all narratives are equal. Imagine, to take a silly example, that someone told you story after story extolling the virtues of eating dog shit. You've been told these stories since you were a child. You believe them. You eat dog shit hotdogs, dog shit ice cream, General Tso's dog shit. Sooner or later, if you are exposed to some other foods, you might figure out that dog shit really doesn't taste good. Or if you cling too tightly to these stories (or if your enculturation is so strong that dog shit actually does taste good to you), the diet might make you sick or kill you. To make this example a little less silly, substitute the word pesticides for dog shit. Or, for that matter, substitute Big Mac, Whopper, or Coca Cola. — Derrick Jensen

It is not uncommon in the church for us to urge each other to witness to our faith and sometimes we do so as though it were easy to do. It is not. Our faith is so profoundly intimate and important that we draw our breath in pain to tell the story of our faith in God. And to find the appropriate word to speak even to a receptive mind is difficult. Especially if the opportunity that presents itself comes as a total surprise. — Fred B. Craddock

Story blew out a shaky breath toward the ceiling. "Dude."

Beside her, Daniel's body shook with silent laughter. "Did you really just say that?"

She rolled over to face him, a catlike yawn stretching her face. "In California, the word dude has over a thousand different meanings. Dude, Duuuuuude, Dude! It all depends on your tone. — Tessa Bailey

Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words
"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"
words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way? — Jennifer Egan

I know it's such a boring interview sometimes with us at 'American Horror Story', but I just can't say a word. I would certainly love to be back, that's for sure. It's such a great job. — Lily Rabe

In all the things that really matter, we are one. Love and faith, trust and empathy, family and friendship, sunsets and songs of awe: in every wish born in our humanity we are one. Our humankind, at this moment in our destiny, is a child blowing on a dandelion, without thought or understanding. But the wonder in the child is the wonder in us, and there's no limit to the good we can do when human hearts connect. It's the truth of us. It's the story of us. It's the meaning of the word God: we are one. We are one. We are one. — Gregory David Roberts

Mara gave you my letter?"
"Yes."
"You must have been astonished." She had exposed her heart in that letter.
His eyebrows shot up. "'Astonished' is a mild word for it."
"But you came - so you must have read the other letters. They should have prepared you a little."
"I received no other letters. I had no idea you were in this part of the world."
She shook her head in confusion. "Then how did you know to come?"
"Yasmeen and I were in New Eden again - I have written that story for you in another letter - when a supply ship arrived carrying the rumor that Zenobia Fox was under the protection of the Kraken King. Needless to say, we abandoned New Eden and flew to Krakentown and full steam. — Meljean Brook

I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story. — Annie Proulx

In Cold Blood is the story of these six people - the [four] Clutters, who died together November 15, 1959, and Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who were hanged April 14, 1965. And my book is the story of their lives and their deaths. It's a completely factual account and every word is true.

- Truman Capote, interviewed in A Visit with Truman Capote, Maysles Films, 1966 (alternate title: With Love From Truman). — Truman Capote

Have you noticed,' she asked, straightening the counting frames to her liking before closing the cupboard doors and turning toward him, 'that at church when the clergyman is giving his sermon everyone's eyes glaze over and many people even nod off to sleep? But if he suddenly decides to illustrate a point with a little story, everyone perks up and listens. WE were made to tell and listen to stories, Joel, It is how knowledge was passed from person to person and generation to generation before there was the written word, and even afterward, when most people had no access to manuscripts or books and could not read them even if they did. Why do we now feel that storytelling should be confined to fiction and fantasy? Can we enjoy only what has no basis in fact? — Mary Balogh

I'm more excited than I'll admit when my hand closes around the paperback. It's like I've been handed a secret, a piece of her soul that she just decided to entrust with me. That's the way with writers--every word on a page like a window into their private place, exposing a great deal of vulnerability when they allow others to see inside. Even fiction is made up of the truthful scars of the people telling the story. I should know. I tell the same stories myself every day. — Amy Matayo

A word about apologizing: It's hard to do it without digging yourself in deeper. It's also scary and that's why we avoid the pain. We want so badly to plead our case and tell our story. The bad news is that everybody has a story. Everyone has a version of how things went down and how they participated. — Amy Poehler

So perhaps the reason I shuddered at the idea of writing something about 'Christian art' is that to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.' And the artist either says 'My soul doth magnify the Lord' and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessicarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary. — Madeleine L'Engle

Imagination is the politics of dreams; imagination turns every word into a bottle rocket ... Imagine every day is Independence Day and save us from traveling the river changed; save us from hitchhiking the long road home. Imagine an escape. Imagine that your own shadow on the wall is a perfect door. Imagine a song stronger than penicillin. Imagine a spring with water that mends broken bones. Imagine a drum which wraps itself around your heart. Imagine a story that puts wood in the fireplace. — Sherman Alexie

"Real" drawing is about specifics. It's about describing an object as accurately as possible. In a comic strip you have to draw a picture of the idea of the object. You have to draw the word that you are picturing, then you have to mix in specifics with it for it to work as a story. But you are still working with drawn words. — Chris Ware

You can just say the word "hair" to a woman, and she tells you the story of her life. — Elizabeth Benedict

There is so much information in one Hebrew word that translators are hard pressed to decide how much information should be cut. Since the first official translation (the Septuagint), Jewish translators advocated translating Hebrew (for outsiders) at the 'story' level.
pg viii — Michael Ben Zehabe

I hate the word fine. It is descriptive of nothing. Socially acceptable filler with no true meaning. It's what you say when you are checking your feelings, unwilling or unable to let yourself be too happy or too sad. Fine. It's an emotional bookmark. A pause until you can continue the story. — Emme Burton

There is a story I always tell my students ... when I came for the 1st time to the US. I didn't speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word "exit" which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :"No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they open leads to success — Pablo

It's the thing I struggle with every day: the mental diligence and stamina needed to sit in front of the computer, open the file, start writing and to keep doing so, word after word, until I've created the next story. A combination of learning disability and chronic health issues make that the hardest thing for me. — Nalo Hopkinson

That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was evidently a term of reproach."

-Sherlock Holmes- — Arthur Conan Doyle

The best endings resonate because they echo a word, phrase, or image from earlier in the story, and the reader is prompted to think back to that reference and speculate on a deeper meaning. — James Plath

Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader. — Katherine Paterson

Audry Hepburn on the cover of The Nun's Story was staring up at me from my unmade bed. Her hair was hidden by her snow-white wimple; her big eyes looked frightened.
"What are you looking at?" I said. "Fuck you." It was the first time I'd ever said the word. I felt a brief shiver of power.
Then I sat back on the bed and sobbed. Dolores Price: Lady of Sorrow. — Wally Lamb

All the stories and poems and letters and oracles and wisdom verses of God's Word, like individual instruments in a great orchestra, serve THE WHOLE story. — James MacDonald

Between the disfigurement and the muzzle, it's nearly impossible to catch what she's saying. Always, though, while tripping and stumbling to the music, she looks out into her audience and tells the story about her mother. Most people laugh and yell for her to lift her skirts, but every so often she'll spot someone weeping and swear they can understand her every word. — David Sedaris

A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. — Flannery O'Connor

Silence made space for other people's words, which was important for those who needed to be listened to. — Rachel Simon

Spoiler: I didn't win the Main Event. You had suspicions, you say? For one thing, the subtitle of this book would be "The Amazing Life-Affirming Story of an Unremarkable Jerk Who Won the World Series of Poker!" instead of having the word "Death" in it. For another, do these sound like the words of a motherfucker who won a million goddamn dollars? — Colson Whitehead

Oftentimes
when I read a book,
I want to savor
each word,
each phrase,
each page,
loving the prose
so much,
I don't want it
to end.

Other times
the story pulls me in,
and I can hardly
read fast enough,
the details flying by,
some of them lost
because all that matters
is making sure
the character
is all right
when it's over. — Lisa Schroeder

If there is anything certain in life, it is this. Time doesn't always heal. Not really. I know they say it does, but that is not true. What time does is to trick you into believing that you have healed, that the hurt of a great loss has lessened. But a single word, a note of a song, a fragrance, a knife point of dawn light across an empty room, any one of these things will take you back to that one moment you have never truly forgotten. These small things are the agents of memory. They are the sharp needle points piercing the living fabric of your life.

Life, my children, isn't linear where the heart is concerned. It is filled with invisible threads that reach out from your past and into your future. These threads connect every second we have lived and breathed. As your own lives move forward and as the decades pass, the more of these threads are cast. Your task is to weave them into a tapestry, one that tells the story of the time we shared. — Stephen Lee

Sometimes kids ask how I've been able to write so many books. The answer is simple: one word at a time. Which is another good lesson, I think. You don't have to do everything at once. You don't have to know how every story is going to end. You just have to take that next step, look for that next idea, write that next word. — Andrew Clements

Like the librarians of Babel in Borges's story, who are looking for the book that will provide them with the key to all the others, we oscillate between the illusion of perfection and the vertigo of the unattainable. In the name of completeness, we would like to believe that a unique order exists that would enable us to accede in knowledge all in one go; in the name of the unattainable, we would like to think that order and disorder are in fact the same word, denoting pure chance.
It's possible also that both are decoys, illusions intended to disguise the erosion of both books and systems. It is no bad thing in any case that between the two our bookshelves should serve from time to time as joggers of the memory, as cat-rests and as lumber-rooms. — Georges Perec

Each stroke of your fingers is a different word that describes the story. By itself it's meaningless, but - " I pushed down on a few fingers helping her play a few notes. "String them together and you have a melody. You have a story. So, Saylor, what story do you want to tell? — Rachel Van Dyken

There is no hint here that preaching is thought of primarily as self-expression
of subjective experience or feeling-disclosure or autobiography or 'telling one's story' so as to neglect Scripture."275 It is the Word that is to be preached. — Ben Witherington III

I shouldn't have said it, but the word slipped out of my mouth as easy as air. it wasn't exactly the kind of work any well-behaved student would use, which sort of explained why I had just used it. And it certainly isn't the most elegant way to start off a story, but it honestly represents what I was feeling. Besides, I could have said something a lot stronger. But not everybody wants to read a story with those kinds of words and thoughts being expressed in the very first sentence.
"Stop swearing," Jason screamed. — Obert Skye

See, the institutions and specialist, experts, you see. Yes, yes,
experts, indeed. See, they would have us believe that there is an order
to art. An explanation. Humans are odd creatures in that way. Always
searching for a formula. Yes, a formula to create an expected norm for
unexplainable greatness. A cook book you might say. Yes, a recipe
book for life, love, and art. However, my dear, let me tell you. Yes,
there is no such thing. Every individual is unique in their own design,
as intended by God himself. We classify, yes, always must we classify,
for if not, then we would be lost, yes lost now wouldn't we?
Classification, order, expectations, but alas, we forget. For what is art,
if not the out word expression of an artist. It is the soul of the artisan
and if his expectations are met, than who are we to judge whether his
work be art or not? — Cristina Marrero

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

A man who writes a story is forced to put into it the best of his knowledge and the best of his feeling. The discipline of the written word punishes stupidity and dishonesty. A writer lives in awe of words for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. — John Steinbeck

The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know. The hero journey is a symbol that binds, in the original sense of the word, two distant ideas, the spiritual quest of the ancients with the modern search for identity, always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find. — Phil Cousineau

The word "story" is short for the word "history." They both have the same root and fundamentally mean the same thing. A story is a narrative on an event or series of events, just like history. — James M. Kouzes

Are you scared?" He taunted, an amused smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.
I raised my chin a fraction. "No. I ... just ... I haven't ridden a horse before."
He leaned forward and patted the horse's neck. "Prism is gentle. You have my word."
I wasn't worried about the horse. "And you?"
Ry shrugged, his facial expression remained shuttered. "I'd never make that a personal promise, but I will get you to a phone. — Beth Mikell

Objective truth is difficult to come by, and even if you have it, what you can pass on to the next person is the story that you tell about it. In order for truth to be recognized as true, it has to be wrapped in plausibility. Just the same as lies. (Another Word: Plausibility and Truth — Daniel Abraham

Tell me a story, Wilson. It can even be a long, boring, dusty English tome."
"Wow! Tome. Learn a new word, Echohawk?" Wilson wrapped his arms around me as I sagged against him.
"I think you taught me that one, Mr. Dictionary." I tried not to whimper as the pain swept through me.
"How about Lord of the Flies?"
"How about you just kill me now?" I ground out, my teeth gritted against the onslaught, appreciative of Wilson's diversionary tactics if not his choice in stories.
Wilson's laughter made his chest rumble against my cheek. "Hmm. Too realistic and depressing, right? Let's see . . . dusty tomes . . . how about Ivanhoe?"
"Ivan's Ho'? Sounds like Russian p**n ," I quipped tiredly. Wilson laughed again, a sputtering groan. He was practically carrying me at this point and looked almost as exhausted as I felt.
"How about I tell you one — Amy Harmon

A drawing begins with 1 line; a story begins with 1 word; a dream begins with 1 idea, and they all die with 1 doubt. Believe in yourself. — Giuseppe Bianco

I'm convinced Midnight Gulch can't be the only magical town in the world. I bet there's a snicker of magic on every street, in every old building, every broken heart, every word of a story. Maybe it's hidden away and you need to look harder for it. Or maybe the magic is right there, right in front of you, and all you have to do is believe. — Natalie Lloyd

Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito
out! Every simile that would have made sub-moron's mouth twitch
gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer
lost!
Every story slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like
in the finale
Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been razored. Every image that demanded so much as one instant's attention
shot dead. — Ray Bradbury

Tomorrow at the press conference would be dreadful. She would be surrounded by nice young men who spoke Big Business or Computer or Bachelor on the Make, and she would not understand a word they said."
"Short Story: Blued Moon — Connie Willis

The word story is intended to alert the reader to the fact that, however closely the narrative may fit the facts, the fictional process has been at work. — Bruce Chatwin

It's a complicated process being so bilingual. Sometimes it's a mere word or sentence that comes to me, if I'm writing the book in English, in French. It's not always easy to deal with. Sometimes even during an interview somebody can ask me a question in English that I want to answer in French and vice versa - that's the story of my life! — Tatiana De Rosnay

Certain people can keep a word tune, so to speak, and certain people cannot. And, above all, certain people can tell a story, and other people can't. They don't hear that point where something else has to come. — James Salter

He remembered a story Madrigal had told him once: the human tale of the golem. It was a thing shaped of clay in the form of a man, brought to life by carving the symbol aleph into its brow. Aleph was the first symbol of an ancestral human alphabet, and the first letter of the Hebrew word truth; it was the beginning. Watching Karou rise to her feet, radiant in a fall of lapis hai, in a woven dress the colour of tangerines, with a loop of silver beads at her throat and a look of joy and relief and ... love ... on her beautiful face, Akiva knew that she was his aleph, his truth and beginning. His soul. — Laini Taylor

After Jesus showed up, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.
Of course, just because Jesus replaces the Old Testament doesn't mean that you should necessarily skip it. That would be like skipping Batman and Robin just because the story starts over in Batman Begins. The important thing to realize is that both the old and new stories are about an all-powerful being trying to rid the world of evildoers, only in the new one The Batman can eat pork. — Stephen Colbert

Each letter of the alphabet is a steadfast loyal soldier in a great army of words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories. One letter falls, and the entire language falters. — Vera Nazarian