“The raw materials of story are the raw materials of all human cultures. Story deals with the same questions as theology, philosophy, psychology. It is concerned with polarities: love and hate, birth and death, joy and sorrow, loss and recovery.”

—  Lloyd Alexander

"The Grammar of Story", in Celebrating Children's Books (1981), pp. 10–11

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The raw materials of story are the raw materials of all human cultures. Story deals with the same questions as theology…" by Lloyd Alexander?
Lloyd Alexander photo
Lloyd Alexander 93
American children's writer 1924–2007

Related quotes

Maxim Gorky photo

“Processing the human raw material is naturally more complicated than processing lumber.”

Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer

The I.V.Stalin White Sea - Baltic Sea Canal (1934)

Woodrow Wilson photo

“You deal in the raw material of opinion, and, if my convictions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Address to the Associated Press (20 April 1915)
1910s

Marianne Moore photo

“If you demand on the other hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

Poetry
Collected Poems (1951)

Charles Erwin Wilson photo

“Costs of manufactured articles importantly depend on the cost of raw materials as well as labor, and the prices of many raw materials do not fluctuate directly with the labor cost of producing them.”

Charles Erwin Wilson (1890–1961) American secretary of Defence

Charles E. Wilson cited in: Ernest Dale (1950), Sources of economic information for collective bargaining. p. 36

“By technology is meant the actions that an individual performs upon an object, with or without the aid of tools or mechanical devices, in order to make some change in that object. The object, or 'raw material', may be a living being, human or otherwise, a symbol, or an Inanimate object. People are raw materials in people-changing or people-processing organizations; symbols are materials in banks, advertising agencies, and some research organizations; the interactions of people are raw materials to be manipulated by administrators in organizations; boards of directors, committees, and councils are usually Involved with the changing or processing of symbols and human interactions, and so on.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1960s, "A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Organizations", 1967, p. 195

“Politics is a kind of engineering isn't it. With people as your raw material.”

Thomas Pynchon book V.

Source: V. (1963), Chapter Nine, Part II, Mondaugen

William Ralph Inge photo

“The phase of thought or feeling which we call Mysticism has its origin in that which is the raw material of all religion, and perhaps of all philosophy and art as well, namely, that dim consciousness of the beyond, which is part of our nature as human beings.”

William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) Dean of St Pauls

Christian Mysticism (1899), Preface
Context: The phase of thought or feeling which we call Mysticism has its origin in that which is the raw material of all religion, and perhaps of all philosophy and art as well, namely, that dim consciousness of the beyond, which is part of our nature as human beings. Men have given different names to these "obstinate questionings of sense and outward things." We may call them, if we will, a sort of higher instinct, perhaps an anticipation of the evolutionary process; or an extension of the frontier of consciousness; or, in religious language, the voice of God speaking to us. Mysticism arises when we try to bring this higher consciousness into relation with the other contents of our minds.

Henrik Ibsen photo

“The common people are nothing more than the raw material of which a People is made.”

Henrik Ibsen An Enemy of the People

Dr. Stockmann, Act IV
An Enemy of the People (1882)

“Techniques are performed upon raw materials. The state of art of analyzing the characteristics of the raw materials is likely to determine what kind of technology will be used. (Tools are also necessary, of course, but by and large, the construction of tools is a simpler problem than the analysis of the nature of the material and generally follows the analysis.) To understand the nature of the material means to be able to control it better and achieve predictability and efficiency in transformation. We are not referring here to the 'essence of the material, only the way the organization perceives it to be … The other relevant characteristic of the raw material, besides the understandability of Its nature, is Its stability and variability; that is, whether the material can be treated in a standardized fashion or whether continual adjustment to it is necessary. Organizations uniformly seek to standardize their raw material In order to minimize exceptional situations. This is the point of de-individualizing processes found in military academies, monasteries and prisons, and the superiority of the synthetic shoe material Corfam over leather.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1960s, "A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Organizations", 1967, p. 195

Michael Cunningham photo

“This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.”

Michael Cunningham book A Home at the End of the World

Source: A Home at the End of the World

Related topics