“There is no story that is not true, […] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”

— Chinua Achebe , book Things Fall Apart

The quote "There is no story that is not true, […] The world has no end, and what is good among one …" is famous quote by Chinua Achebe (1930–2013), Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic.

Variant: The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.
Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 15 (p. 130)
Context: "We have heard stories about white men who make the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true." [said Obierika]
"There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?"

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Chinua Achebe 63

Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic 1930–2013

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: The Burning Plain (1997), p.258 (Chapter 20)

“Tell me a story, Pew.
What kind of story, child?
A story with a happy ending.
There's no such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending.”

Jeanette Winterson book Lighthousekeeping

Source: Lighthousekeeping (2004), p. 49

“Bad people succeed and good people fail, but that's not the end of the story. Miracles happen that nobody sees, and among us walk heroes who are never recognized, and people live in loneliness because they cannot believe they are loved.”

Dean Koontz book The Darkest Evening of the Year

Source: The Darkest Evening of the Year

“Yes, I'm sure it makes people more money, and money is nice, but it has very little to do with telling good and true and useful stories.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(22 January 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: [On test audiences and alternate endings on DVDs] Seeing these two endings, knowing that the studio most likely chose the one that would close the film after polling test audiences, makes me a little ill. What if I did that with my novels? What would you think of me, if I were to so subvert the act of storytelling and mythmaking in an effort to make more money (by, I might add, perverting democracy)? Okay, at the end of Low Red Moon, I can kill Chance, or I can let her live. Which ending do you prefer? Check the box, and let us know. Should Orpheus make it back to the surface without looking to see if Eurydice is truly following him, or should he look? Should the mouse pull the thorn from the lion's paw, or should he mind his own damned business? I can only hope that it is self-evident that this process is as alien and destructive to art as anything ever could be. Yes, I'm sure it makes people more money, and money is nice, but it has very little to do with telling good and true and useful stories.