#storytelling

I tell the story to you now, but in each telling the story itself changes a little, changes direction, and that in turn changes you and me. So be very careful not only in how you repeat it but in how you remember it, goslings. More often than you realize it, the world is shaped by two things -- stories told and the memories they leave behind. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#evolution #fiction #future #influence #literature

The enormity of problems like hunger and social injustice can certainly motivate us to act. We can be convinced logically of the need for intervention and change. But it is the story of one individual that ultimately makes the difference—by offering living proof. ↗

— John Capecci and Timothy Cage

#activism-inspiration #advocacy #personal-story #story #storytelling

In the end nothing matters but the work. You can’t control how it’s taken, and the act of telling a story always involves a gap. Sometimes confusion is the risk of ambiguity–I say that to students all the time. It’s true at the fireside and it’s true in the parlor, and it’s true in made-up towns and New York. Two humans face one another, words come out of one, words go into the other mind through the ears and eyes of the listener. It’s a story. It’s simple. The gap is the thing. Make sure you build the bridge. ↗

— Patrick Somerville

#storytelling #writing #communication

You bound him to you with your courage and your tales. You hold him to you now. You captured a wild creature when you had no place you could keep him. ↗

— Juliet Marillier

#storytelling #courage

Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal functions, as either a storyteller or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder, love, and daring. When we cease to tell or listen, then we no longer exist as a people. ↗

— Bryce Courtenay

#listening #storytelling #design

We can tell people abstract rules of thumb which we have derived from prior experiences, but it is very difficult for other people to learn from these. We have difficulty remembering such abstractions, but we can more easily remember a good story. Stories give life to past experience. Stories make the events in memory memorable to others and to ourselves. This is one of the reasons why people like to tell stories. ↗

— Roger C. Shank

#experience

Jesus and institutional religion are on a collision course, and those who go with Jesus will find more adventure, freedom, and religion-bursting grace than they can stand, all the things that make traveling worth the effort. But they will also find clash and conflict. The path of Jesus is not well tolerated by the establishment. ↗

— Ronnie McBrayer

#storytelling #freedom

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story. ↗

— Wilkie Collins

#inspirational #on-fiction #storytelling #writing #inspirational

This is our story to tell. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the story telling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. ↗

— Jandy Nelson

#life #storytelling #life

A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important. ↗

— Donald Miller

#life