“Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 97
Nigerian writer 1977Related quotes
“When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.”
Quoted in an interview, "Sendak on Sendak," Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia (2007/2008)
“The uncomfortable moments in a person's life make great stories down the road.”
Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 32 : Morning
Context: One of the ghosts — an old woman — beckoned, urging her to come close.
Then she spoke, and Mary heard her say:
"Tell them stories. They need the truth. You must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories."
That was all, and then she was gone. It was one of those moments when we suddenly recall a dream that we’ve unaccountably forgotten, and back in a flood comes all the emotion we felt in our sleep. It was the dream she’d tried to describe to Atal, the night picture; but as Mary tried to find it again, it dissolved and drifted apart, just as these presences did in the open air. The dream was gone.
All that was left was the sweetness of that feeling, and the injunction to tell them stories.
Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
“This Story may
Delightful be to tell another day.”
The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis
