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story quotes

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“a story has as many versions as it has readers.” John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
“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
“It ruined a story to have it all come out quickly. The good story lay in half-told things which must be filled in out of the hearer's own experience.” John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
“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
“In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.” Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
“Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a story’s just a story.” Stephen King, 11/22/63
“people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.” John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“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
“Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon
“Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble.” Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One
“Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“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
“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
“The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“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
“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
“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
“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
“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
“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

Related topics

truth self writing lie deafness God unhappiness reality reading imagination sadness adventure interest discovery identity devil fun shame journey invention

Related authors

John Steinbeck (5)
Stephen King (4)
Samuel Butler (1)
William Shakespeare (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
Haruki Murakami (1)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1)
John Green (1)
J. D. Salinger (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1)
Margaret Atwood (1)
Patrick Rothfuss (1)
Nicholas Sparks (1)
Charlotte Brontë (1)

Related sources

East of Eden (3)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (3)
The Winter of Our Discontent (1)
The Tempest (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
Kafka on the Shore (1)
The Catcher in the Rye (1)
The Fellowship of the Ring (1)
Little Women (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1)
The Blind Assassin (1)
Nausea (1)
The Name of the Wind (1)
The Lucky One (1)
11/22/63 (1)
The Last Tycoon (1)
Tortilla Flat (1)