“Sad stories make good books”

“stories make you think and dream; books make you want to ask questions”

Michael Morpurgo (1943) British children's writer

“There's a hunger for stories in all of us, adults too. We need stories so much that we're even willing to read bad books to get them, if the good books won't supply them.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

“While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.”

Jeffrey Archer (1940) English author and former politician

“Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us.”

Stephen King book 'Salem's Lot

“After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“The truth doesn't always make a good story, does it?”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

“What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

“There are only two kinds of books which you can write and be pretty sure you're going to make a living — cook books and detective stories.”

Rex Stout (1886–1975) American writer

“An unread book does nobody any good. Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer