#storytelling

Things in life have no real beginning, though our stories about them always do. ↗

— Colum McCann

#life

What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident? And are there not moods which need heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland for their expression, no less than this dilapidated earth? Nay, are there not moods which shall find no expression unless there be men who dare to mix heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland together, or even to set the heads of beasts to the bodies of men, or to thrust the souls of men into the heart of rocks? Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet." ("A Teller of Tales") ↗

— W.B. Yeats

#literature #storytellers #storytelling #men

Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It’s a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it’s a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time. Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don’t believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It’s all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat’s cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more. History should be a hammock for swinging and a game for playing, the way cats play. Claw it, chew it, rearrange it and at bedtime it’s still a ball of string full of knots. Nobody should mind. Some people make a lot of money out of it. Publishers do well, children, when bright, can come top. It’s an all-purpose rainy day pursuit, this reducing of stories called history. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#money

As long as we are engaged in storytelling that moves the culture forward, it doesn't matter what format it is. ↗

— LeVar Burton

#engaged #format #forward #long #matter

I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then... it's sort of like taking the training wheels off, trying to write a book that's fun in the same way without relying on quite such mechanical or external beats. ↗

— Jonathan Franzen

#book #books #down #external #fun

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process. ↗

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

#already #another #around #collective #communal

The Internet is allowing us to get back to what's really more natural, which is that storytelling is a shared thing. It's our natural way to be communal. ↗

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

#back #communal #get #internet #more

I love storytelling so for me to get behind a story and get in there early in its infancy and kind of develop it in the early stages was something I really wanted to be a part of. ↗

— Josh Hutcherson

#develop #early #early stages #get #i

Ture stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded. ↗

— Siri Hustvedt

#present #story #storytelling #change

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today. ↗

— Robert McAfee Brown

#into #most #most powerful #powerful #powerful way