Quotes about story
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“The only failure is not knowing how to be happy."---My Story”

Céline Dion (1968) Canadian singer

Happiness, Failure

“An untold story has a weight that can submerge you, sure as a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Stay

“Perhaps everyone has a story that could break your heart…”

Nick Flynn (1960) American writer

Heart, Funny

“Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.”

Erwin Raphael McManus (1958) Salvadoran minister

“Just like any woman,… we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Children, Art

“Good ideas stay with you until you eventually write the story.”

Brian Keene (1967) American writer

Idea

“This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

Thinking

“The story of one person is the story of all of humanity.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Personality

“Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

Faith, Understanding

“Each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

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

World

“A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

“Every man is a hero in his own story, Princess.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Denth
Source: Warbreaker (2009)

Princess

“An unread book does nobody any good. Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Books

“I know there is a moral to this story, but I don't know what it is.”

Nicole Krauss (1974) American novelist

“We are reading the story of our lives
As though we were in it
As though we had written it.”

Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

Reading

“This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Patience

“when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows

World, Heart, Sea

“Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

People

“And now you'll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won't be false, and they won't be true
but they'll be real”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: A Thousand Mornings

Falseness

“Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Love

“Memory plays tricks. Memory is another word for story, and nothing is more unreliable.”

Ann-Marie MacDonald book Fall on Your Knees

Source: Fall on Your Knees

Memory

“He wasn't in a safe little story where wrongs were automatically righted; he was still in the real world, where bad bitter things happened for no reason, and people paid for things that weren't their fault.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

People, World

“But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“Immortals are, by definition, immortal. End of story.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

“You love me," she said. "That's enough. We love each other."

"Yes. Yes, that's true." He smiled. "We are a love story.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Smile

“Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Fear, Jealousy, Dreams, Music

“If you own this story you get to write the ending.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Attitude

“The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love

“When God closes a door, he opens a window. Yeah. The problem was that this particular window opened off the tenth story, and he wasn't so sure God supplied parachutes.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

Source: An Echo in the Bone

God, Problem

“I am going to marry my novels and have little short stories for children.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Kerouac, as quoted by Allen Ginsberg in The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice (2006), page 250.

Children

“Thats beautiful! Sad and beautiful," murmured Meggie. Why were sad stories often so beautiful? It was different in real life.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Life, Sadness, Beauty

“But answer me this: how can a story end happily if there is no love?”

Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Love

“What's the use of stories that aren't even true?”

Salman Rushdie Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Source: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

“Stories are consoling, fiction is one of the consolation prizes for having lived in the world.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

Source: Conversations with Don Delillo

World

“This is what intimacy does to us over time. That's what a long marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other's stories. (p.237)”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Marriage, Time

“every story written is
marks upon a page
The same marks,
repeated, only
differently arranged”

Max Barry (1973) Australian writer

Source: Lexicon

“Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside?”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

Source: The Ice Queen

People

“I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

“If something wants to be a story, it will be.”

Scarlett Thomas book The End of Mr. Y

Source: The End of Mr. Y

“Some stories stayed with you even when you wanted to forget them.”

Alice Hoffman The Story Sisters

Source: The Story Sisters

Forgetting

“Stories only happen to people who can tell them.”

Allan Gurganus (1947) American novelist and story writer

Variant: Know something, sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them.

People

“This is my story; I promise to leave nothing out.
First you will smile, and then you will cry - don't say you haven't been warned.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: First you will smile, and then you will cry -- don't say you haven't been warned.
Source: A Walk to Remember

Smile, Cry

“Religion has what is EASILY the greatest bullshit story of all time.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

You Are All Diseased (1999)
Context: In the bullshit department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I got to tell you the truth, folks: when it comes to bullshit - big-time, major-league bullshit - you have to stand in awe, in AWE of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest! Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it: religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time... But He loves you! He loves you, and He needs MONEY! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise - somehow, just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story... Holy Shit!

Religion, Time

“I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“It also occurred to him that throughout history, humankind has told two stories: the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in quest of a beloved isle, and the story of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Source: Collected Fictions

God, History, Sea

“People will tell you most of the story… and I’ve learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they’re afraid.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

People, Truth, Learning, Parting

“As a girl, she had come to believe in the ideal man -- the prince or knight of her childhood stories. In the real world, however, men like that simply didn't exist.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Men, World, Girl, Childhood

“Moments are history. If you have enough of them, they become a story.”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: The Shoemaker's Wife

History

“I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t remember what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“There are some stories you can't hear enough. They are the same every time you hear them. But you are not. That's one reliable way of understanding time.”

Ann-Marie MacDonald book The Way the Crow Flies

Source: The Way the Crow Flies

Way, Understanding, Time

“Without story books is like a person with no soul.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Books, Soul, Personality

“And I began to feel sorry for myself; for so many years, my drawer full of memories had held the same old stories.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Feeling, Memory

“Sad stories make good books”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Books, Sadness

“I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Personality

“I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have never believed that the novelist who properly performed this first condition of his art, was in danger, on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character — for this plain reason, that the effect produced, by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which is directly connected with them. It may be possible in novel-writing to present characters successfully without telling a story; but it is not possible to tell a story successfully without presenting characters: their existence, as recognizable realities, being the sole condition on which the story can be effectively told. The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention of readers is a narrative which interests them about men and women — for the perfectly obvious reasons that they are men and women themselves.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: Collins explaining what he calls the literary principal guiding him, in the preface of the second edition of The Woman in White. Also in Reality's Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins by Maria K. Bachman & Don Richard Cox [University of Tennessee Press, 2003, ISBN 1-572-33274-3] ( p. xiv https://books.google.com/books?id=_X8AlmIp0dwC&pg=PR14)

Women, Men, Hope, Art

“I am the lord of Redmont Fief. He is my tenant. I am his commander. End of story. Ipso facto. Case-o closed-o.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Burning Bridge

“The choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Life, Hate, Forgiveness

“I surrendered my beliefs
and found myself at the tree of life
injecting my story into the veins of leaves
only to find that stories like forests
are subject to seasons”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Source: , said the shotgun to the head.

Life, Tree, Season

“I think it's a shame that something as creative and vital to the nature of the human species as story-telling is largely controlled by the soulless cretins known as publishers.”

Piers Anthony (1934) English-American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres

Nature, Thinking

“No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Feeling

“By Aladdin's lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth.”

Christopher Moore book Practical Demonkeeping

Source: Practical Demonkeeping

Truth

“The world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

World

“at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power.”

Susan Wiggs (1958) American writer

Source: The You I Never Knew

Truth

“Let me get this straight. The future of our relationship hinged on advice from a fifteen-year-old girl, a probably untrue story from a one-eyed Chihuahua trainer, and me unromantically - yet skillfully - kissing you on top of silverware and china?”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Variant: The future of our relationship hinged on advice from a fifteen-year old girl, a probably untrue story from a one-eyed Chihuahua trainer, and me unromantically – yet skillfully – kissing you on top of silverware and china?
Source: The Indigo Spell

Girl, Kiss, Future

“Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Adam asked as we went back upstairs.

“Sometime,” I told him. “When we're telling ghost stories around a campfire, and I want to scare you.”

Patricia Briggs book Bone Crossed

Source: Bone Crossed

“Every story I've written was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me; it is my life.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Life

“But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies.”

Orson Scott Card book Children of the Mind

Source: Children of the Mind

Life, Truth, Imagination, Understanding

“Please tell me you did not bring me out here so you could tell me a very boring story about your sister.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Sister

“I drove in last night,' he said. 'I couldn't sleep, it was too hot. So I went outside. I was feeling melancholy. Then I danced with a beautiful girl, and I felt better. What's your story?”

Jude Watson book What I Saw and How I Lied

Source: What I Saw and How I Lied

Beauty, Feeling, Girl, Sleep

“You can't be real," Delilah murmurs.
"Says who?" I ask. "Did you really think that a story exists only when you're reading it?”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Thinking, Reading

“Every new medium transforms the nature of human thought. In the long run, history is the story of information becoming aware of itself.”

James Gleick book The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Source: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

History, Nature

“I didn’t want to tell the story of myself, but someone I called myself. If you read yourself as fiction, it’s rather more liberating than reading yourself as fact.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Reading

“Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well—and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: Innocence

Life, People, Books, World

“It's important to tell your story. It's important to listen.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Baby Be-Bop

“This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Source: The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey

Dreams, Hope, Time

“People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

People, Problem

“people who say its a long story, mean it's a stupid short one that they are too embarrassed and couldn't be bothered to tell”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

People, Stupidity

“Stories are people. I'm a story, you're a story… your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we're lucky, our stories join into one, and for awhile, we're less alone.”

Jess Walter (1965) American writer

People

“A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Training

“It's actually a rather romantic and dramatic story --- one I would eagerly tell you, except for the fact that I recently forgot it, based on it being far too long and having not enough decapitations.”

Brandon Sanderson book Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Source: The Collected Works

History

“There is no greater power on this earth than story.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

“Mother used to say it meant Christopher was a nice name because it was a story about being kind and helpful, but I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Help

“You don't have anything
if you don't have the stories.”

Leslie Marmon Silko book Ceremony

Source: Ceremony

“The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Thinking, Memory

“When you write you tell yourself a story. When you rewrite you take out everything that is NOT the story.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Variant: When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“How stupid lovers can be! But if they were not, there would be no story.”

Eleanor Hibbert (1906–1993) English novelist

Source: The Courts of Love

Stupidity, Lovers

“She would like to hear that now, even if it was a lie. Because some lies are beautiful. Stories do not tell you that.”

Anne Ursu (1900) American writer

Source: Breadcrumbs

Lie, Beauty