#stories

…and soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#reading #stories #beauty

I need to be a vampire," she said. "and I want one of them to make it happen. Michael will do fine. I don't care who turns me. The important thing is that if I change, I'll be a princess." I was wrong. She was really crazy. ↗

— Rachel Caine

#eve-rosser #michael-glass #miranda #morganville #short-stories

At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#the-diamond-as-big-as-the-ritz #age

If you have WANNA, you can do ANYTHING!! - The Caterpillar That Wouldn't Change ↗

— Nancy S. Mure

#caterpilliar #change #inspirational #metamorphosis-and-other-stories #motivating

When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads. ↗

— Ann Patchett

#short-stories #writing #change

Outing someone is like ripping a butterfly from its cocoon. You can damage them for life and rob them of THEIR life changing experience of liberation. For a successful emergence THEY have to struggle through the cocoon of fear and shame. THEN they can fly. ↗

— Anthony Venn-Brown

#coming-out-of-the-closet #coming-out-stories #change

As far as I can figure, the way that it works is this: everyone has something that happened to them. The thing that we each carry. And you can see it in people, if you look. See it in the way someone walks, in the way someone takes a compliment, sometimes you can just see it in someone’s eyes. In one moment of desperation, of fear, in one quick moment you can see that thing that happened. Everyone has it. The thing that keeps you up at night, or makes you not trust people, or stops love. The thing that hurts. And to stop it, to stop the hurt, you have to turn it into a story. And not just a story you play over and over for yourself, but a story that you tell. A story’s not a story unless you tell it. And once you tell it, it’s not yours anymore. You give it away. And once you give it away, it’s not something that hurts you anymore, it’s something that helps everyone who hears it. It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to explain. It’s probably best if we just show you how it works. ↗

— Daniel MacIvor

#hurt #life-lessons #stories #communication

Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#inspiration #love #stories #courage

Sam: I wonder if we'll ever be put into songs or tales. Frodo: [turns around] What? Sam: I wonder if people will ever say, 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring.' And they'll say 'Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad?' 'Yes, my boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that's saying a lot.' Frodo: [continue walking] You've left out one of the chief characters - Samwise the Brave. I want to hear more about Sam. [stops and turns to Sam] Frodo: Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam. Sam: Now Mr. Frodo, you shouldn't make fun; I was being serious. Frodo: So was I. [they continue to walk] Sam: Samwise the Brave... ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#lord-of-the-rings #sam-gamgee #samwise #samwise-the-brave #stories

We do not last, she thinks. In the end, only the stories survive. ↗

— Alexis M. Smith

#stories #death