Best Narrative Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 25

“Objects are better than text at conveying narrative”

“How often do we stand convinced of the truth of our early memories, forgetting that they are assessments made by a child? We can replace the narratives that hold us back by inventing wiser stories, free from childish fears, and, in doing so, disperse long-held psychological stumbling blocks.”

Children Long Made Stories Memories Forget Convinced Block Psychological Narrative Wiser Inventing Assessment Stumbling Stumbling Blocks

Book:The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

Source: The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“The mathematical question is "Why?" It's always why. And the only way we know how to answer such questions is to come up, from scratch, with these narrative arguments that explain it. So what I want to do with this book is open up this world of mathematical reality, the creatures that we build there, the questions that we ask there, the ways in which we poke and prod (known as problems), and how we can possibly craft these elegant reason-poems.”

“You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human... And although you don't have complete control over the narrative - no author does, I can tell you - you could nevertheless create it.”

Inspirational Humans Mean Doe I Can Stories Imagine Narrative Nevertheless Graduation What It Means To Be Human

Author:Toni Morrison

“Most religions live from a narrative that shapes their relationship with the divine other, God or the gods, and with the human other, the stranger.”

Humans Relationship Divine Shapes Stranger Narrative

Author:Timothy Radcliffe

“A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.”

Knows Causes Anxiety Structure Narrative Narrative Structure

Book:No Regrets, Coyote

Source: No Regrets, Coyote

“History resists an ending as surely as nature abhors a vacuum; the narrative of our days is a run-on sentence, every full stop a comma in embryo. But more: like thought, like water, history is fluid, unpredictable, dangerous. It leaps and surges and doubles back, cuts unpredictable channels, surfaces suddenly in places no one would expect.”

Running Water Cutting Dangerous Sentences Surface Narrative Leap Unpredictable Fluid Vacuums Embryos

Author:Mark Slouka

“This is one of the take-home messages for me: we just walk around with this narrative in America that everybody wants to be rich and famous. That that’s why people do what they do. And you know, all through these pages you learn over and over again no, actually not even NFL cheerleaders are doing it for fame and fortune. There’s another motivation going on that is so pure and human. That to me was an eye-opener in a really wonderful way.”

People Knows Way Want Humans Home Eye America Motivation Walks Rich Wonderful Pure Fame Messages Pages Fortune Narrative Nfl Cheerleader

Author:Jeanne Marie Laskas

“Subplots bring realism to your main plot simply by existing – by interrupting the flow. Why is this? Because life doesn’t move forward all at once. Interruptions happen, change rushes in, we juggle three or ten balls at once. Readers don’t expect continuous narratives.”

Writing Happens Moving Three Reader Ten Flow Balls Moving Forward Narrative Plot Realism Interruptions Interrupting Subplots

Author:Elizabeth Sims

“The tricks of magic follow the archetypes of narrative fiction — there are tales of creation and loss, death and resurrection, and obstacles that must be overcome.”

Inspiration Motivation Loss Fiction Magic Creation Overcoming Obstacles Tricks Tales Narrative Resurrection Archetype

Author:Marco Tempest

“Rachel Resnick's story of love lost and love sought cracks open the timeworn addiction narrative to release something raw, probing, brave, and redemptive. The courage it took to write this story is challenged only by the courage it must have taken to live it. I sit in awe of such unflinching honesty. LOVE JUNKIE is memoir at its very best.”

Writing Stories Lost Taken Honesty And Love Brave Addiction Memoir Release Narrative Awe Cracks Lost Love Junkie Probing Honesty Love

Author:Hope Edelman

“The phantasmagoria, the actual experience that we try to understand and organize through narrative, varies from place to place. No single narrative serves the needs of everyone everywhere.”

Needs Trying Narrative Organize Vary

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“Of the individual poems, some are more lyric and some are more descriptive or narrative. Each poem is fixed in a moment. All those moments written or read together take on the movement and architecture of a narrative.”

Moments Together Literature Individual Written Movement Architecture Narrative Fixed

Author:Marilyn Hacker

“I tried to control the narrative.”

Narrative

Author:Lance Armstrong

“[In mountaineering, if] we look for private experience rather than public history, even getting to the top becomes an optional narrative rather than the main point, and those who only wander in high places become part of the story.”

Ifs Looks Stories Walking Wander Narrative Hiking Mountaineering Mountain Climbing Optional High Places

Book:Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Source: Wanderlust: A History of Walking

“What is a memory? Not a storehouse, not a trunk in the attic, but an instrument that constantly refines the past into a narrative, accessible and acceptable to oneself.”

Past Memories Instruments Oneself Narrative Acceptable Trunks Attics

Author:Stanley Kauffmann

“The Singing of Swans is a remarkable narrative calling--even compelling--us to connect with our own ancestral roots, to seek our own inner wisdom, and to reclaim our own inner voices!”

Voice Calling Singing Roots Narrative Remarkable Compelling Inner Voice Swans

Author:Margaret Starbird

“I think if I had been writing fiction, where the work is entirely dependent on the writer's creativity and the potential directions the narrative might take are infinite, I might have frozen”

Ifs Thinking Writing Might Fiction Creativity Infinite Narrative Dependent Frozen Writing Fiction

Author:Laura Hillenbrand

“Specificity is the soul of narrative.”

Soul Narrative Specificity

Book:Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

Source: Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“Genre might certainly increase some of your narrative freedoms, but it also diminishes others. That's the nature of genre.”

Might Increase Narrative Genre Diminish

Author:Junot Diaz

“I'm one of those apocalyptics. From the start of my immigrant days, I've been fascinated by end-of-the-world stories, by outbreak narratives, and always wanted to set a world-ender on Hispaniola.”

World Ends Stories Wanted Narrative Immigrants Fascinated End Of The World Ender Outbreaks

Author:Junot Diaz

“Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.”

Giving Feels Memories Monsters Narrative Blank Neighbour Migration Cheques

Author:Junot Diaz

“If I weren't a theatre designer, I wouldn't be any other kind of designer. Design is interesting to me as it relates to narrative: the design has to support the narrative. Storytelling is the most important thing.”

Ifs Kind Important Interesting Support Design Important Things Theatre Storytelling Relate Narrative Designer

Author:Christine Jones

“The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.”

Literature Narrative Cords Fetus Strangling Umbilical Cord

Book:Crooning

Source: Crooning

“I see rock music as the best example of modernday storytelling that exists in our society. Songs are narratives that help the listeners cope with the reality of life that can't be easily spoken about in everyday conversation. It is a hugely powerful process of helping people find themselves through music.”

People Helping Reality Song Process Powerful Rocks Example Quiet Conversation Everyday Storytelling Narrative Reality Of Life Our Society Listeners Helping People Rock Music

Author:Stephan Jenkins

“It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or essays. Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour all you possess and learn.”

Writing Long Book Stories Bigs Novel Fit Projects Narrative Nonfiction Ambitious Essays Big Book

Book:The Abundance

Source: The Abundance

“One hopes that each piece contains enough space for several narratives.”

Enough Space Pieces Narrative

Author:Kiki Smith

“I like the idea of a big caesura between the narratives, a space which readers can fill in with their own speculative history.”

Ideas Bigs Space Reader Narrative

Author:Jonathan Coe

“It is the province of poetry to be more realistic and present than the artificial narratives of an outer discourse, and not afraid of the truthful difficulty of the average human life.”

Humans Difficulty Average Narrative Human Life Realistic Not Afraid Artificial Truthful Discourse Provinces

Author:David Whyte

“There's a great freedom of forms and intonations in Luigi Fontanella's poetry. He doesn't take a strong formal stand; his poetry entertains moments of nearly proselike colloquial narrative along with moments of powerful lyrical tension. There is a movement of extremes, from powerful tonality to near atonality, and I like this a great deal; it's a stance that very effectively catches the spirit that makes work in poetry possible nowadays.”

Moments Form Spirit Strong Deals Powerful Movement Extremes Narrative Tension Formal Stance Lyrical Great Freedom Intonation

Author:Giovanni Raboni

“You don't have to be the best guitar player, or have the best voice, or even be the best looking person - writing a song that moves people is worth more than all the other nonsense. (Just look at Bob Dylan - he's got almost no vocal range at all, but his songs are deeply moving and iconic.) If I had to offer one piece of advice: Write a song that moves people, and write it from within yourself. Your personal narrative is more engaging and moving than anything else you can imagine in your mind.”

People Ifs Writing Mind Looks Persons Moving Song Voice Pieces Imagine Player Advice Offers Guitar Narrative Range Being The Best Nonsense Bob Engaging Dylan Vocal Guitar Player Iconic One Piece

Author:Ryan Ross

“The ironic is a mere ancient whisper in this torqued narrative: its odd violence feels true. Today & Tomorrow crashes through the windows of strip malls and paints the hypertrophic aisles with bristly-creepy hilarity.”

Feels Today Violence Tomorrow Window Mere Paint Ancient Narrative Odd Ironic Crash Creepy Malls Aisle Hilarity

Author:Stacey Levine

“Charles Bernstein's pairs of jingles of 'public discourse' are 'simultaneous double narrative / the space between's the other narrative/as if they're opposite.' In the space between, outside representation but in the 'presence' of it, we are provoked to laugh. Bernstein alters our language to open a double range that's public and mind at once and inseparable, that is 'Poetry is patterned thought in search of unpatterned mind.' Girly Man is doing it.”

Ifs Men Mind Language Space Laughing Opposites Narrative Range Pairs Poetry Is Representation Discourse Inseparable Space Between Girly Provoked Simultaneous Public Discourse Jingles

Author:Leslie Scalapino

“McEwan's Atonement…truly dazzles, proving to be as much about the art and morality of writing as it is about the past…. The middle section of Atonement, the two vividly realized set pieces of Robbie's trek to the Channel and Briony's experiences with the wounded evacuees of Dunkirk, would alone have made an outstanding novel…. There is wonderful writing throughout as McEwan weaves his many themes — the accidents of contingency, the sins of absent fathers, class oppression — into his narrative, and in a magical love scene.”

“What a joy it is to read a book that shocks one into remembering just how high one's literary standards should be.... a tour de force by one of England's best novelists.... Atonement is a spectacular book; as good a novel - and more satisfying... - than anything McEwan has written....sublimely written narrative.... The Dunkirk passage is a stupendous piece of writing, a set piece that could easily stand on its own.”

Should Writing Book Remember Joy Force Novel Pieces Written Standards England Narrative Novelists Shock Satisfying Passages Spectacular Atonement Dunkirk

Author:Noah Richler

“White guilt is more of a sanctioned social convention than a genuine emotional experience. It’s a form of theatrical empathy that’s socially and financially rewarded. When you learn to say and perhaps even believe the right things about race, doors are opened for you. When you say the wrong thing, those doors slam shut. Then, the gossips and church ladies will shame you publicly, demand that you be fired from your job, and use every avenue available to them to coerce a confession, a public apology and a staged conversion that contributes to their progressive narrative.”

“Between the experience of living a normal life at this moment on the planet and the public narratives being offered to give a sense to that life, the empty space, the gap, is enormous.”

Giving Moments Space Planets Normal Empty Enormous Narrative Gaps Normal Life Empty Space

Book:The Shape of a Pocket

Source: The Shape of a Pocket

“There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.”

Fiction Narrative Nonfiction Fiction And Nonfiction

Author:E. L. Doctorow

“Movements have narratives. They tell stories, because they are not just about rearranging economics and politics. They also rearrange meaning. And they're not just about redistributing the goods. They're about figuring out what is good.”

Stories Political Change Society Movement Goodness Economics Determine Meaningful Narrative Goods Distribution Wordplay Rearranging

Author:Marshall Ganz

“[As a conductor] there has to be, between me and the orchestra, an unshakable bond of trust, born out of mutual respect, through which we can spin a musical narrative that we all believe in.”

Believe Inspiration Motivation Born Musical Narrative Mutual Orchestra Conductor Mutual Respect Unshakable

Author:Charles Hazlewood

“Anyone telling about his travels must be a liar, . . . for if a traveler doesn't visit his narrative with the spirit and techniques of fiction, no one will want to hear it.”

Ifs Want Spirit Fiction Technique Narrative Liars Traveler Travel Writing

Author:Paul Fussell

“It’s not easy to find old-school journalism in true crime … yet with Lethal Intent, author Sue Russell proves how integrity, tenacity, brutal truth and honest reporting become essential components to what is a riveting—if not terrifying—narrative of America’s most hated ‘monster,’ Aileen Carol Wuornos. It’s not easy humanizing serial killers, but through an objective lens, clear and defined, Russell paints a graphic portrait of Wuornos’ evil intentions and rough life—a true page-turner, breathless, intense—but also important.”

“A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens-second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.”

Source: A common room: essays, 1954-1987

“I read Norman Lock’s The Boy in His Winter with delight and amazement. Styled in the vernacular of a rapidly changing America, it stays true to the themes of Mark Twain’s original: class relations, race and slavery, childhood innocence, moral hypocrisy—and, of course, the stark beauty and unforgiving nature of America’s greatest river. I finished this absolutely elegant narrative feeling that Huck Finn has never been more alive.”

“The passion for the story is the wind in your narrative sails. Begin at the heart. We must hear the heartbeat of the story. Love your characters into existence.”

Heart Character Stories Passion Existence Love You Wind Narrative Sail Heartbeat

Author:Patricia Lee Gauch

“Many writers struggle with exposition in their novels. Often they heap it on in large chunks of straight narrative. Back story – what happens before the novel opens – is especially troublesome. How can we give the essentials and avoid a mere information drop? Use dialogue. First, create a tension-filled scene, usually between two characters. Get them arguing, confronting each other. Then you can have the information appear in the natural course of things.”

“Americans don't understand what metaphor in cinema is about. They're extremely good at making straightforward, linear narrative movies, which entertain superbly. But they very rarely do anything else.”

Metaphor Narrative Cinema Straightforward Linear

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“Magicians are manipulating your consciousness. They are showing you something impossible. They're getting you to construct a narrative, which simply isn't true. So that means they know how to make you aware of certain things and blind to other things. What I'm hoping is that magic, this entertainment vehicle that has been around for a long time, will give us a real insight into the deep mysteries of consciousness”

Knows Giving Mean Long Has Beens Real Certain Consciousness Know How Impossible Magic Mystery Long Time Blind Entertainment Insight Narrative Vehicle Constructs Magician

Author:Richard Wiseman

“Every great narrative is at least two narratives, if not more - the thing that is on the surface and then the things underneath which are invisible.”

Ifs Two Surface Invisible Narrative

Author:Ali Smith

“I studied English Literature. I wasn’t a very good student, but one thing I did get from it, while I was making films at the same time with the college film society, was that I started thinking about the narrative freedoms that authors had enjoyed for centuries and it seemed to me that filmmakers should enjoy those freedoms as well.”

Thinking Should Wells Film Literature Enjoy One Thing Century Students College Very Good Enjoyed Narrative Filmmaker English Literature Good Students

Author:Christopher Nolan

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