“… What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.”

Source: The Hakawati

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Rabih Alameddine14

Lebanese-American painter and writer. 1959

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Colonel Doctor Jens Ladislav in Ch. 33 : dezmai of the drums, p. 294
The Visitor (2002)

“We humans have always defined ourselves by narration. What's happening today is that we're allowing multi-national corporations to tell our stories for us.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)
Context: We humans have always defined ourselves by narration. What's happening today is that we're allowing multi-national corporations to tell our stories for us. The theme of corporate stories (and millions drink them in every day) seldom varies: to be happy you must consume, to be special you must conform. Absurd, obviously, yet our identities have become so fragile, so elusive, that we seem content to let advertisers provide us with their version of who we are, to let them recreate us in their image: a cookie-cutter image based on market research, shallow sociology, and insidious lies. Individualism is bad for business – though absolutely necessary for freedom, progressive knowledge, and any possible interface with the transcendent. And yes, it's entirely possible to function as a free-thinking individual without succumbing to narcissism..

“As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves.”

Martha C. Nussbaum (1947) American philosopher

“It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.”

Pema Chödron (1936) American philosopher

“Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

“Telling a story is how we digest what happens to us," Mr Whittier says, "It's how we digest our lives. Our experiences.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 21

“In the age of pseudo‑events it is less the artificial simplification than the artificial complication of experience that confuses us. Whenever in the public mind a pseudo‑event competes for attention with a spontaneous event in the same field, the pseudo‑event will tend to dominate. What happens on television will overshadow what happens off television.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 39.

“One is telling a story about old times when someone breaks in with a little detail that he happens to know, implying that one's own version is inaccurate — disgusting behavior!”

Sei Shonagon (966–1025) Japanese author and a court lady

Source: The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (1002), p. 46

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

“We all need stories. What happens in our daily lives changes our stories.”

Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director

"Decade: Wong Kar-wai on “In The Mood For Love” " in Indie Wire (2 February 2001) https://www.indiewire.com/2009/12/decade-wong-kar-wai-on-in-the-mood-for-love-55668/

“… What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.”

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