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Story quotes

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“Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.” William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” - 1623

“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring” - 1954

“people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“a story has as many versions as it has readers.” John Steinbeck, “The Winter of Our Discontent” - 1961

“Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort it is.” Louisa May Alcott, “Little Women” - 1868

“Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble.” Nicholas Sparks, “The Lucky One” - 2008

“Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something...” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit...” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“As if there could possibly be true stories; things happen one way and we tell about them in the opposite sense.” Jean-Paul Sartre, “Nausea” - 1938

“You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap,...” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world.” Haruki Murakami, “Kafka on the Shore” - 2002

“An Apology for the Devil . . . It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.” Samuel Butler, “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler” - 1912

“No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

Related topics

truth writing God reality sadness reading lie invention trouble fun end deafness devil profit adventure ordinary interest self discovery delight

Related authors

John Steinbeck (4)
Stephen King (3)
William Shakespeare (1)
John Green (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Samuel Butler (1)
Nicholas Sparks (1)
Haruki Murakami (1)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1)
J. D. Salinger (1)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1)

Related sources

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (3)
East of Eden (3)
The Tempest (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
Little Women (1)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1)
The Lucky One (1)
The Catcher in the Rye (1)
Nausea (1)
The Fellowship of the Ring (1)
Kafka on the Shore (1)
The Winter of Our Discontent (1)