Quotes about story

A collection of quotes on the topic of story, tell, likeness, people.

Johnny Depp quote: “My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.”

Quotes about story

“There are two sides to every story and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.”

Paul J. Alessi (1968) Actor / Producer

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/10696117836382928/

Truth

“…Who better than a Latin American to write about dirty tricks and other stories.”

José Baroja book El lado oscuro de la sombra y otros ladridos

“No, they never expected or sensed the wishes of that omniscient narrator who, at times, wondered, accompanied by a glass of cabernet, about how his story should be constructed, how this story should develop.”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Time, Sense

“They never noticed the one who, silently, sustained this story, chose the future, set the guidelines for their memories and desires.”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Future, Memory

“This is how, without the consent of the two lovers, of its two main characters, of the only ones who were originally worth anything in this short story, the narrator decided to incorporate two more words into the plot: “doubt” and “uncertainty.””

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Lovers

“Suddenly, as the sun rose, the poem flew without an owner, while he faded away like a fiction called a “story.””

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

Sun

“In my opinion, and beyond the different definitions about this literary genre or the absurd academic discrepancies about its constitution or taxonomy, the story is above all an experiential art.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Grupo Ígneo. Interview. https://grupoigneo.com/blog/jose-baroja-el-cuento-es-un-trago-breve/

Art

“If this were a story, we could affirm that it was a stereotype of an old lady, within a space that had lost its daily life around the corner.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

Life

“…this is a story and, therefore, "something must happen", "something" bad, "something" that breaks your safe journey towards the bookstore and, surely, towards "love", because love is the last refuge left in my head or in the depths of any fucking soul.”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

Soul, Love

“I will choose the bad guy in every story, I am attracted to villians”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/531451370/Quotes-of-Famous-People Scibd documents, Cornelius Keagon quotes

Guy

“Stories of perfect people who have never failed don't inspire me, in fact, those stories make me bored and sleepy. I'm fascinated and addicted to stories of people who have failed and risen to become the world's best, those are the real heroes. Failing doesn't define you, how you bounce back up is what makes you”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Perfection, People, World

“My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Tattoo

“Our stories may be singular, but our destination is shared.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

“I speak and speak, … but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. … It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”

Marco Polo (1254–1324) Venetian explorer and merchant noted for travel to central and eastern Asia

Io parlo parlo ... ma chi m'ascolta ritiene solo le parole che aspetta. ... Chi comanda al racconto non è la voce: è l'orecchio.
Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1974), ch. 9
In fiction

“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

Feeling, Imagination, Learning, Time

“When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

As quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html (2005), by Larry Schwartz, ESPN SportsCentury

Housing, Country

“Make sure that you are next year's big success story. Don't fall into the pit of people who have given up on making something of themselves, and make sure you make everything out of yourself. I'm getting too old for this. And when I retire someday, I'm going to want to sit down at a computer and play your games, read your stories, and watch your videos. Don't fall in with the people who have already given up on themselves. You are tomorrow's next big thing.”

Scott Cawthon (1971) American independent video game designer

People, Game, Reading, Success

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Variant: I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
Source: Rising Strong

Deep, Love

“OK, number one. There, as I know of, there is no such thing as skin bleaching… I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin, it's something that I cannot help, OK? But, when people make up stories that I don't want to be who I am, it hurts me. It's a problem for me, I can't control it.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On the lightening of his skin.
Televised Interview with Oprah Winfrey (1993)

People, Problem, Help, Hurt

“To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life, Art, Music, Way

“Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

Quoted in David Kushner, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture Chapter 8, p. 120.
Variant: Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.

Game

“These problems do not disappear just because we do not hear about them. There is so much more happening around the world than what is communicated to us about the top stories we do hear.”

Angelina Jolie book Notes from My Travels

Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador(2006)
Context: These problems do not disappear just because we do not hear about them. There is so much more happening around the world than what is communicated to us about the top stories we do hear. We all need to look deeper and discover for ourselves.... What is the problem? Where is it? How can we help to solve it?

World, Communication, Problem

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1998) by David Pringle, and The Definitive Illustrated Guide to Fantasy (2003) by David Pringle
General sources

Imagination

“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.”

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) English children's writer and illustrator

“The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real.”

Todd Strasser (1950) American author of young-adult and middle grade novels

Reading

“I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Laila, p. 395
Variant: Every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Death, People, Way, Loss

“I am convinced that comics should not only make people laugh. For this in my stories found tears, anger, hatred, pain and end not always happy.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

Quoted in Helen McCarthy, Osamu Tezuka: God of manga , translated by Fabio Deotto, Edizioni BD, 2010, back cover.

Pain, People, Tear, Anger

“I've always been an actor, the reason I've been successful in the rap-game I think is that I treat my albums like movies, and I treat writing it like I'm a character writing a story, you know, for each album whatever I'm going through, whatever stages I'm going through, and I do it vividly with vivid pitcure, with action and description, and an beginning and with an end, and conflict, and you know, redemption, things like that. So I feel like I always been an actor and acting is my first love.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Interview on the set Gridlock'd (1996)

Love, Feeling, Game, Thinking

“When the remedy you have offered only increases the disease, then leave him who will not be cured, and tell your story to someone who seeks the truth.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Rumi Daylight (1990)

Truth, Disease

“After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Love, Sadness, Reading, Happiness

“We are the hero of our own story.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

“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

World, Happiness

“People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.”

Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic

People

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Source: An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2005), p. 86
Source: War Talk

Art, Music, Literature, Joy

“Every real story is a never ending story.”

Michael Ende book The Neverending Story

Source: The Neverending Story

Anniversary

“You almost create this infinite universe for the character that you’re playing and then you’re compromising it into the story that you’re doing. Whatever character you’re playing, you kind of explore endlessly more than what’s on the page. You use that exploration to do the performance that’s in the film, but hopefully, people will see all that work and preparation in those little glimpses of scenes and moments. Oh, there’s something there. There’s so much more happening with this character.”

Bill Skarsgård (1990) Swedish actor

Bill Skarsgard on ‘IT’ and Tapping into His Fears to Create a Terrifying New Pennywise http://collider.com/bill-skarsgard-pennywise-it-movie-interview/#images (July 28, 2017)

People, Universe

“Sorry, girl. But, you missed out. Well tough luck; that boy's mine now. We are more than just good friends; this is how the story ends. Too bad that you couldn't see; see the man that boy could be. There is more than meets the eye; I see the soul that is inside. He was a boy, she was girl. Can I make it any more obvious? We are in love, haven't you heard? How, we rock each other's world!”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Sk8er Boi"
Let Go (2002)

Love, World, Soul, Girl

“As comics writers we had to have villains in our stories. And once World War II started, the Nazis gave us the greatest villains in the world to fight against. It was a slam dunk.”

Stan Lee (1922–2018) American comic book writer

How the Jews Created the Comic Book Industry Part I: The Golden Age (1933-1955) Reform Judaism http://reformjudaismmag.net/03fall/comics.shtml (2003)

War, World, Fight

“If you really come down to any large story that interests people – holds the attention for a considerable time … human stories are practically always about one thing, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Tolkien in Oxford (1968) http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/12237.shtml, a BBC 2 television documentary (at 21:49)

Death, People, Time

“The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was universal and unending.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Mankind is Confronted by One Supreme Task, News of the World, 14 November 1937
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol IV, Churchill at Large, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 421.
The 1930s

War

“Great love stories are created by two people who are bonded through deep love. A love so intense, your palms become moist and your heart flutters when you think of them.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

Love, Making love, Heart, People

“Here is a story of latifundia and death squads, masters and slaves, patriarchs and subordinated women, self-enriching capitalists and plundered provinces, proﬁteering slumlords and urban rioters. Here is a struggle between the plutocratic few and the indigent many, the privileged versus the proletariat, featuring corrupt politicians, money-driven elections, and the political assassination of popular leaders. I leave it to the reader to decide whether any of this might resonate with the temper of our own times.”

Michael Parenti book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

Introduction
The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003)

Money, Time, Self-confidence, Death

“Another Boring Love Story

She was risky at best.
She had a sordid past.
She was complicated.
She was wild.
She had numerous demons.
But she had a loving heart.
But she had a soft smile.
But her tears smelled like morning dew.
But she was intelligent and worldly.
But she intimidated men.
So, I dove in headfirst without a second thought.
And wow; she was a demon.
The End”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2005

Smile, Past, Intelligence, Heart

“Spiritual awakening is not a special feeling, state, or experience. It is not a goal or destination, somewhere to reach in the future. As the Buddha was trying to tell us (though few actually listened), it is not a superhuman achievement or attainment. You don’t have to travel to India to find it. It is not a special state of perfection reserved for the lucky or the privileged few. It is not an exclusive club. It is not an out-of-body experience, and it does not involve living in a cave, shutting off all your beautiful senses, detaching yourself from the realities of this modern world. It cannot be transmitted to you by a fancy bearded (or non-bearded) guru, nor can it be taken away or lost. You do not have to become anyone’s disciple or follower, or give away all your possessions. You do not have to join a cult. You do not have to follow anyone.

Rather, is a constant and ancient invitation – throughout every moment of your life – to trust and embrace yourself exactly as you are, in all your glorious imperfection. It is about being fully present and awake to each precious moment, coming out of the epic movie of past and future (“The Story of Me”) and showing up for life, knowing that even your feelings of non-acceptance are accepted here. It is about radically opening up to this extraordinary gift of existence, embracing both the pain and the joy of it, the bliss and the sorrow, the ecstasy and the overwhelm, the certainty and the doubt. Knowing that you are never separate from the Whole, never broken, never truly lost.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/shockingly-simple-principles-of-spiritual-awakening/

“Each heart is a pilgrim,
each one wants to know
the reason why the winds die
and where the stories go.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, A Day Without Rain (2000)
Source: da Pilgrim, n.° 9

Heart

“There's only room for one hero in this story-and everyone knows the devil doesn't get to be the good guy.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

Guy

“Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Bk. 1, ch. 1
Source: The End of the Affair (1951)

“Once upon a time – for that is how all stories should begin – there was a boy who lost his mother.”

John Connolly The Book of Lost Things

Source: The Book of Lost Things

Boy, Time

“A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.”

Stephen King book Skeleton Crew

Source: Skeleton Crew

Kiss

“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

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?"

People, World

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Variant: In the beginning the Universe was created.
This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

People, Universe

“You can’t really change the heart without telling a story.”

Martha C. Nussbaum (1947) American philosopher

Change, Heart

“For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance, and that was the end of the story. But even that was a memorable event, in the locked loneliness in which one had to live.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Loneliness

“If you don't like my story, write your own”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Variant: If you don't like someone's story, write your own.
Source: Things Fall Apart

“All stories are true. But some of them never happened.”

James A. Owen The Search for the Red Dragon

Source: The Search for the Red Dragon

“I ask myself: is every story that has ever been written in this world, a story of suffering and affliction?”

Clarice Lispector book The Hour of the Star

Source: The Hour of the Star

World, Affliction, Suffering

“People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.”

Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic

Source: There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

People, World, History, Parting

“The Gospel is not an old, old story, freshly told. It is a fire in the Spirit, fed by the flame of Immortal Love; and woe unto us, if, through our negligence to stir up the Gift of God which is within us, that fire burns low.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

Source: Why Revival Tarries

Love, God

“Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem & turned it into an opportunity.”

Joseph Sugarman

People, Problem, Success

“Tell the truth. That way you don't have to remember a story.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Truth, Way

“We deny the existence of two classes, because there are many more than two classes. We deny that human history can be explained in terms of economics. We deny your internationalism. That is a luxury article which only the elevated can practise, because peoples are passionately bound to their native soil.
We affirm that the true story of capitalism is now beginning, because capitalism is not a system of oppression only, but is also a selection of values, a coordination of hierarchies, a more amply developed sense of individual responsibility.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Speech (21 June 1921), Ion Smeaton Munro, Through Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy, 27 January 2008 http://books.google.com/books?id=DML39RmvsmYC&pg=PA120&dq=%E2%80%9CWe+deny+your+internationalism%22+mussolini&lr=&sig=gTHVLgfaIKPCn_jW8f0phjDKrAI, 1920s

People, History, Sense, Passion

“This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this presidential campaign: to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together — unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction — towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Children, Hope, History, Understanding

“To tell the story of how and why we chose to do what we did, no one can ignore the personalities and characteristics of those individuals engaged in making decisions. For military command is as much a practice of human relations as it is a science of tactics and a knowledge of logistics. Where there are people, there is pride and ambition, prejudice and conflict. In generals, as in all other men, capabilities cannot always obscure weaknesses, nor can talents hide faults.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. x.

Men, People, Knowledge, Decision

“I am thankful that the President of the United States has given me permission to tell my story. I hope that he and those in authority under him will read my story and judge whether my people have been rightly treated.”

Geronimo (1829–1909) leader of the Bedonkohe Apache

Geronimo's Story of His Life (1907)

People, Hope, Reading

“There is no doubt a difference in the right hon. gentleman's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. But that's the old story; you must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true that the right hon. gentleman's conduct is different. I remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right hon. gentleman say: "I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the confidence of Sovereigns". That was a grand thing. We don't hear much of "the gentlemen of England" now. But what of that? They have the pleasures of memory—the charms of reminiscence. They were his first love, and, though he may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man almost has gone through it. My hon. gentleman does what he can to keep them quiet; he sometimes takes refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity; and if they knew anything of human nature they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens? What happens under all such circumstances? The right hon. gentleman, being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the genteelest manner: "We can have no whining here". And that, sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest—that beauty which everybody wooed and one deluded. There is a fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the hon. member for Stockport than by one who through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed. For me there remains this at least—the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/17/agricultural-interest in the House of Commons (17 March 1845). 1840s

Love, People, Pleasure, Beauty

“Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

As quoted in Hitchcock (1967) by François Truffaut.

People

“This is me praying that
This was the very first page
Not where the story line ends
My thoughts will echo your name
Until I see you again
These are the words I held back
As I was leaving too soon
I was enchanted to meet youPlease don't be in love with someone else
Please don't have somebody waiting on you
Please don't be in love with someone else
Please don't have somebody waiting on you”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Enchanted.
Song lyrics, Speak Now (2010)

Love, Waiting

“I was obsessed with fairytales, and I was a very, very inquisitive kid, and I would ask my mom all kinds of questions. It all kind of formed a story in my head, and I really wanted to be a published author when I was 10, but I had a hard time writing a novel when I was 10, so I decided to wait until I was little bit older and then get it done.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

-Chris Colfer on how he came up with the idea of TLOS
Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

Moms, Idea, Question, Fairytale

“You say, “I want to know myself.” You are the I. You are the knowing. You are the consciousness through which everything is known and that cannot know itself. It is itself. There is nothing to know beyond that. And yet all knowing arises out of it. The “I” cannot make itself into an object of knowledge, of consciousness.
So you cannot become an object to yourself. That is the very reason the illusion of egoic identity arose because mentally you made yourself into an object. “That's me,” you say, and then you begin to have a relationship with yourself and tell others and yourself your story.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Stillness Speaks (2003)

Knowledge

“The Russians are primitive folk. Besides, Bolshevism is something that stifles individualism and which is against my inner nature. Bolshevism is worse than National Socialism — in fact, it can't be compared to it. Bolshevism is against private property, and I am all in favor of private property. Bolshevism is barbaric and crude, and I am fully convinced that that atrocities committed by the Nazis, which incidentally I knew nothing about, were not nearly as great or as cruel as those committed by the Communists. I hate the Communists bitterly because I hate the system. The delusion that all men are equal is ridiculous. I feel that I am superior to most Russians, not only because I am a German but because my cultural and family background are superior. How ironic it is that crude Russian peasants who wear the uniforms of generals now sit in judgment on me. No matter how educated a Russian might be, he is still a barbaric Asiatic. Secondly, the Russian generals and the Russian government planned a war against Germany because we represented a threat to them ideologically. In the German state, I was the chief opponent of Communism. I admit freely and proudly that it was I who created the first concentration camps in order to put Communists in them. Did I ever tell you that funny story about how I sent to Spain a ship containing mainly bricks and stones, under which I put a single layer of ammunition which had been ordered by the Red government in Spain? The purpose of that ship was to supply the waning Red government with munitions. That was a good practical joke and I am proud of it because I wanted with all my heart to see Russian Communism in Spain defeated finally.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (28 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Men, Hate, War, Education

“For the lesson of such stories [of resistance to Nazi atrocities] is simple and within everybody's grasp. Politically speaking, it is that under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that "it could happen" in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.”

Hannah Arendt book Eichmann in Jerusalem

Source: Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Ch. XIV.

People, Country

“I want you to still write a lot of stories so I get excited when I see them, Because I want to see who is making up the best story and when I'm tired of it I will let you know where I will go.”

Zlatan Ibrahimović (1981) Swedish association football player

Talking about rumours where will he go http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/06/01/zlatan-ibrahimovic-keeps-man-utd-guessing-by-saying-he-is-excite/ Attributed

“Life is funny. Life isn't categorized into comedy, drama, action, is it? So I don't know why they try to categorize everything. It drives me crazy-why it would have to be just a romantic comedy or… I want to have a little integrity, a little story, you know?”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Primetime interview (Jan 2004)

Life

“So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Variant translation: "...the search for truth strains the patience of most people, who would rather believe the first things that come to hand." Translation by Paul Woodruff.
Book I, 1.20-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I

Pain, Truth

“The best stories in the world to me are the ones that elicit a real emotion, but have humour.”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

As quoted in This much I know: Jim Carrey, actor, 46, Los Angeles http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/19/jim-carrey-interview by Tony Horkins in The Observer (19 October 2008) Context: Comedic actors can be looked at as a lower form because we have to put ourselves in a lower place than most of the audience. I think lofty emotions are somehow considered more special. The best stories in the world to me are the ones that elicit a real emotion, but have humour.

World

“A deep sense of humor and an unusual ability for telling stories and jokes endeared Johnny even to casual acquaintances.”

Eugene Paul Wigner (1902–1995) mathematician and Nobel Prize-winning physicist

Biographical memoir: "John von Neumann (1903 - 1957)" in Year book of the American Philosophical Society (1958); later in Symmetries and Reflections : Scientific Essays of Eugene P. Wigner (1967), p. 261
Context: A deep sense of humor and an unusual ability for telling stories and jokes endeared Johnny even to casual acquaintances. He could be blunt when necessary, but was never pompous. A mind of von Neumann's inexorable logic had to understand and accept much that most of us do not want to accept and do not even wish to understand. This fact colored many of von Neumann's moral judgments. "It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature." Only scientific intellectual dishonesty and misappropriation of scientific results could rouse his indignation and ire — but these did — and did almost equally whether he himself, or someone else, was wronged.

Sense

“If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by. Seneca is therefore right when he says: "Life is long, if we know how to use it." It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Understanding, Learning, Art, Knowledge

“The inspiration really comes first from the character and the story. That vision of what the story is, and what the character is, the world that they inhabit and what the story wants to tell. That’s really what inspires me.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

World

“The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew’s cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo’s choice to know the truth. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Knowledge, Truth, Beauty, Thinking

“Only you can decide how people describe your personal story after you’ve passed.

RJ Intindola – (Gandolfo) – 1994”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

Personality, People

“I don't expect it to be easy, but I'm certain it will be fruitful. My mission is to take a different approach: Instead of explicitly encouraging young people to read, my goal is to get them to see the value in their own narratives — that they, too, have a story, and that there's power not just in telling it, but in the opportunity to do so.”

Jason Reynolds (1983) author of young adult novels

As quoted in [Jason Reynolds Named New National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-20-002/jason-reynolds-named-new-national-ambassador-for-young-peoples-literature/2020-01-13/, Library of Congress, 10 March 2020, January 13, 2020]

People, Reading

“One’s enemies transmit your story in a distorted form; for they are wrought with envy, jealousy, and hatred. Their aim is to reduce your power and the level of presence.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2020

Envy, Jealousy

“Do not judge my story by the
chapter you walked in on.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“Reading ideas improves,
reading stories entertains,
reading the news informs,
reading books teaches,
reading the song rhymes”

Josephs Quartzy (1999) Tanzanian actor

Source: Sweetest song I know

Reading, Books, Idea

“People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005)

Love, Pain, People

“People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Love, People, Dogs

“A human being is nothing but a story with skin around it.”

Fred Allen (1894–1956) comedian

“No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

“You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written — behind your silence and your suffering.”

Anne Rice book Pandora

Pandora (1998)

Silence, Suffering, Waiting

“I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

“Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Beauty, Home

“Among the tortures and devastations of life is this then — our friends are not able to finish their stories.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves (1931), Ch. II

Life

“Life may contain the "essence" (what else could?); recollection, the repetition in imagination, may decipher the essence and deliver to you the "elixir"; and eventually you may even be privileged to "make" something out of it, "to compound the story." But life itself is neither essence nor elixir, and if you treat as such it will only play its tricks on you.”

Hannah Arendt book Men in Dark Times

Source: Men in Dark Times

Life, Imagination

“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today — but the core of science fiction, its essence, the concept around which it revolves, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"My Own View" in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1978) edited by Robert Holdstock; later published in Asimov on Science Fiction (1981)
General sources

Science

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Misattributed
Source: This is actually from Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks On the Road, though it is widely attributed to Ms. Angelou's book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Inspirational, Business

“Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Life, Change

“I'm not straight, and I'm not gay. I'm not bisexual. I want out of the labels. I don't want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that's not on the map. A real adventure.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Variant: I want out of the labels. I don't want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that's not on the map. A real adventure.'
A spinx. A mystery. A blank. Unknown. Undefined.
Source: Invisible Monsters

Life

“When I was your age — about, ooh, a thousand years ago — I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, eh? All the classics.”

Mark Gatiss (1966) British actor, screenwriter and novelist

Love, Age, Clothes

“every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose