#tories

But no one may know the shape of the tale in which they move. And, perhaps, we do not truly know which sort of beast it is, either. Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#stories #trouble #change

Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself. ↗

— Erin Morgenstern

#habits #reasons #stories #the-night-circus #truth

On the Writing Process: "When in doubt, take it out., ↗

— Barbara DaCosta

#children-s-books #mystery #picture-books #short-stories #writing-advice

Somehow they were entwining without touch, following a choreography laid down in time for lovers. ↗

— Emma Calin

#love-stories #lovers #romance #romance-novel #love

What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#stories #writing #love

Now, years later, he had been commissioned to fashion pictures with sugar water and dyes, a holiday mural. He had risen into something he could do, he had been recognized, and those years spent enduring his father's impatience seemed far away. He would do it for number 98,761,580, his love whose hand he held, cold as it was, who had lain beside him in the tunnels, in the filth. What had haunted him was the thought of her lovely body wasting away. It had torn at his eyes, his throat. It had taken away his faith. He painted a band of sugar on the walls of the hotel, the mural reflecting the city back to itself - the deep green park, the holiday windows, lovers under golden angels, flowers spilling out of markets in December, a resurrected skyscraper, a choir of variegated faces singing in front of a red door of a dark church, the homeless - not swept away, not forgotten - their realities on their faces, hands, hair. It was not a Rockwell. There were a few artists, subcontractors, who kept trying to abscond with the project, to make it what it wasn't for the sake of something they likened to a good make-believe before bed. -- 'A Potter's Field ↗

— Meg Sefton

#short-stories #faith

Masalahnya, kita tidak pernah dalam posisi mereka, kan? Tidak pernah dalam posisi orang-orang yang dicemburui. Percaya nggak, terkadang mending kita dalam posisi yang mencemburui dibanding sebaliknya. Kita aja yang nggak pernah tahu. Anyway, dengan nggak tahu, nggak mesti kita merasa kehidupan mereka lebih oke, kan? ↗

— Tere-Liye

#love

There is no mystery to happiness. Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn -- or worse, indifference -- cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man dies not look back. He doesn't look ahead. He lives in the present. ↗

— Jed Rubenfeld

#detective-stories #love

...writing stories was always a bit like falling in love with a stranger and running off to Marrakech for a long weekend. It didn't have to be successful to be thrilling. ↗

— Ann Patchett

#short-stories #writing #love

If she would just let herself go I would be there to catch her if she fell but she wasn't ready to take that step yet." Ethan Sterling in Private Emotions ↗

— Elize Amornette

#books-romance #elize-amornette #elize-amornette-author #love-story #private-emotions-trilogy