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Narrative Quotes

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Narrative Quotes

“If one loves stories, then one would naturally love the story of the story. Or the story behind the story, pick your preposition. It does seem to me to be a kind of animal impulse almost, a mammalian curiosity. For a reader to wonder about the autobiography in a fiction may be completely unavoidable and in fact may speak to the success of a particular narrative, though it may also speak to its failure.”

IfsKindMayDoeFactsStoriesSeemsSpeakAnimalBehindsFictionWonderParticularReaderPicksCuriosityLove StoryNarrativeImpulseAutobiographyOne LovePrepositions
Author:Lorrie Moore
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“Do you dislike your role in the story, your place in the shadow? What complaints do you have that the hobbits could not have heaved at Tolkien? You have been born into a narrative, you have been given freedom. Act, and act well until you reach your final scene.”

WellsHas BeensStoriesGivenBornRolesLike YouSceneShadowFinalsNarrativeDislikeComplaints
Book:Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God's Spoken World
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“Understand this: we are both tiny and massive. We are nothing more than molded clay given breath, but we are nothing less than divine self-portraits, huffing and puffing along the mountain ranges of epic narrative arcs prepared for us by the Infinite Word Himself.”

SelfGivenDivineMountainInfiniteBreathsPreparedTinyNarrativeRangeMassiveEpicPortraitsClayArcsSelf PortraitMountain RangesSelf Portrait PhotographyHuffing
Book:Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent
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“Memoir is trustworthy and its truth assured when it seeks the relation of self to time, the piecing of the shards of personal experience into the starscape of history's night. The materials of memoir are humble, fugitive, a cottage knitting industry seeking narrative truth across the crevasse of time as autobiography folds itself into the vast, fluid essay that is history. A single voice singing its aria in a corner of the crowded world.”

WorldSelfNightVoiceMaterialsIndustrySingingRelationSeekingCornersHumbleMemoirNarrativeAutobiographyEssaysAssuredFoldsCrowdedFluidTrustworthyPersonal ExperiencesCottagesKnittingFugitiveAriaVoice Singing
Author:Patricia Hampl
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“The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we're not careful, pretty soon we're gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack.”

IfsOur LivesEasierMiracleStructureCarefulFamiliarNarrativeComplexityChocolateSensationsHometownGazingNarrative StructureBurlap
Book:Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World
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“With reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report always being tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other.”

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Author:Thucydides
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“We think that it's the big moments that define our lives-the wedding, the baby, the new house, the dream job. But really, these big moments of happiness are just the punctuation marks of our personal sagas. The narrative is written every day in the small, the simple, and the common. In your tiny choices, in these tiny changes. In the unconsidered. The overlooked. The discarded. The reclaimed.”

ThinkingMomentsDreamBigsJobsHappinessChoicesHouseSimpleCommonOur LivesWrittenBabyMarkTinyNarrativeOverlookedDiscardedPunctuationSagaDream JobMoments Of HappinessPunctuation Marks
Book:Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self
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“After all, it was only a story,' I said, determined to prove her wrong. 'All manner of terrible things may happen in a story. They may be startling at the time, but it passes. One gets caught up in the narrative, but the dangers aren't real, are they? Things happen in any way the storyteller chooses. It is all just made up.”

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Book:Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth
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“MOST of the ugliness in the human narrative comes from a distorted quest to possess beauty. COVETING begins with appreciating blessings: MURDER begins with a hunger for justice. LUST begins with a recognition of beauty. GLUTTONY begins when our enjoyment of the delectable gifts of GOD starts to consume us. IDOLATRY begins when our seeing a reflection of God in something beautiful leads to our thinking that the beautiful image bearer is worthy of WORSHIP.”

ThinkingHumansBeautifulJusticeSeeingBlessingWorshipReflectionAppreciateMurderHungerWorthyLustRecognitionNarrativeEnjoymentQuestsUglinessIdolatryGift From GodSomething BeautifulGluttonyCovetingDelectableBeautiful Images
Author:Shane Claiborne
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“John Lane has long been recognized as one of the South's finest poets and memoirists. This debut establishes him as one of our finest novelists as well. His poet's eye for detail seamlessly merges with a born storyteller's gift for narrative. Fate Moreland's Widow gives voice to those who endured one of the most painful and neglected chapters in American history.”

GivingWellsLongEyeVoiceBornFatePoetSouthPainfulDetailsNarrativeNovelistsChaptersAmerican HistoryFinestStorytellerNeglectedLanesWidowsDebutEye For Detail
Author:Ron Rash
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“For me, it’s like playing the same instrument but in a different context. TV work – it’s really about getting it just right. You have a chance to try again if it’s not. Theatre is like playing a rock show. It doesn’t really matter if you make a tiny mistake. It’s the whole vibe and getting people to feel you. It’s about carrying the moment through all the way with you in an hour and 20 minutes of the narrative.”

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Author:Evelyne Brochu
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“Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice - A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.”

WarAgeFightingVoiceRaceWiseSummerChiefsNarrativeRejoiceBloodyRough TimesSummer DaysGrasshoppers
Book:The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope (including His Translation of Homer). To which is Prefixed the Life of the Author, by Dr. Johnson
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“I do think the challenge, in a way for me, is to write a narrative film and when you finish watching it you feel like it's a collage. You tell the narrative, you tell the story, but you feel like you've created this tapestry. But it also has a shape, a story. So I think there's a middle ground that I try to strike... away from where everyone else seems ready to go, which is, setup, payoff. You know, He's afraid of water, oh, and at the end he's swimming in water - oh, my God. I hate that stuff.”

ThinkingKnowsWayFeelsWritingTryingEndsStoriesSeemsFilmHateStuffWaterChallengesMiddleReadyLike YouShapesI HateStrikesCraftsNarrativeSwimmingTapestryPayoffMiddle GroundCollagesSetups
Author:Shane Black
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“The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.”

MindLittlesCertainLostLinesHistoryForeverEffectsNarrativeFeaturesCharacteristicsPortraitsEmployedMixturesNeglectedAccuracyExaggerationCaricaturesGreat CharacterBest History
Book:Machiavelli : the Founder of the Political
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“This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery.”

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Book:The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
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