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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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble.” Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One
“What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon
“Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“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
“The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“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
“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

Related topics

truth self writing lie God reality reading imagination sadness adventure unhappiness interest invention identity trouble end profit journey discovery devil

Related authors

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

Related sources

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