#narrative

Our dreams and stories may contain implicit aspects of our lives even without our awareness. In fact, storytelling may be a primary way in which we can linguistically communicate to others--as well as to ourselves--the sometimes hidden contents of our implicitly remembering minds. Stories make available perspectives on the emotional themes of our implicit memory that may otherwise be consciously unavailable to us. This may be one reason why journal writing and intimate communication with others, which are so often narrative processes, have such powerful organizing effects on the mind: They allow us to modulate our emotions and make sense of the world. (p. 333) ↗

— Daniel J. Siegel

#memory #narratives #neuropsychology #stories #unconscious

It doesn't matter whether a sequence of words is called a history or a story: that is, whether it is intended to follow a sequence of actual events or not. As far as its verbal shape is concerned, it will be equally mythical in either case. But we notice that any emphasis on shape or structure or pattern or form always throws a verbal narrative in the direction we call mythical rather than historical.(p.21) ↗

— Northrop Frye

#literary-theory #narrative-theory #world-culture #equality

Our reflection of action occurs in different contexts which may influence us to shape our accounts in different ways for different audiences - our colleagues, supervisor, trainers or examiners. Wwe story our lives in ways that give human meaning and purpose to our endeavors, and these stories in turn shape and guide our future actions. ↗

— Jacqui Stedmon

#narratives #life

Conventional forms of narrative allow for different points of view, but for this book I wanted a structure whereby each of the main characters contributed a distinctive version of the story. ↗

— Penelope Lively

#book #characters #contributed #conventional #different

Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands. ↗

— Alan Rickman

#books #call #children #clue #containing

First, it is not unimportant that the legislative texts of the Old Testament are placed in the mouth of Moses and within the narrative framework of the sojourn at Sinai. ↗

— Paul Ricoeur

#framework #legislative #moses #mouth #narrative

Narrative identity takes part in the story's movement, in the dialectic between order and disorder. ↗

— Paul Ricoeur

#dialectic #disorder #identity #movement #narrative

The narrative constructs the identity of the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character. ↗

— Paul Ricoeur

#character #constructing #constructs #her #his

Without sounding too pretentious, I was sort of a slave to the narrative. When the narrative cracks in, I have to go where it takes me. I had to go to the Bohemian Grove. It was the obvious end to the book. ↗

— Jon Ronson

#book #cracks #end #go #grove

It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time. ↗

— Tobias Wolff

#form #grew #i #in the past #narrative