“Any fool can tell a story. Take a few odds and ends of things that happen to you, dress them up, shuffle them about, add a dash of excitement, a little color, and there you have it.”

— Lloyd Alexander

Source: The Arkadians

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Any fool can tell a story. Take a few odds and ends of things that happen to you, dress them up, shuffle them about, ad…" by Lloyd Alexander?

Lloyd Alexander 93

American children's writer 1924–2007

Related quotes

“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

As quoted in The Human Condition (1958) by Hannah Arendt. This appears as part of a statement in a 1957 interview where she speaks of a friend's comments about her:
I am not a novelist, really not even a writer; I am a storyteller. One of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life seems to be its melody, its pattern. And I feel in life such an infinite, truly inconceivable fantasy.
Interview with Bent Mohn in The New York Times Book Review (3 November 1957)
Paraphrased variant : All suffering is bearable if it is seen as part of a story.

“Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of life.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

“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 (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Variant: You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.
Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life