Best Narrative Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 27

“I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them. I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enables you to live, to do something. And sometimes, human beings need story and narrative more than they need nourishment and food.”

People Thinking Needs Believe Humans Book Sometimes Stories Turns Human Beings Greatness Narrative Nourishment

Author:Emma Thompson

“All narratives, even the confusing, are implicitly hopeful; they speak of a world that can be ordered, and thus understood.”

World Speak Understood Narrative Hopeful Confusing

Author:Lucy Grealy

“The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or an adverse one, leaves me cold.”

Cold Sentences Reactions Narrative Chemicals Compelling Leaving Me Adverse Chemical Reactions

Author:Jhumpa Lahiri

“The kind of theater that I do is sort of ‘narrative realism,’ which I think in the broadest sense is legitimate to say is mainstream. I mean, in a certain sense, Suzan-Lori's plays have had mainstream levels of success. But Suzan-Lori is in some ways not a narrative realist.”

Thinking Way Kind Mean Play Certain Levels Theater Narrative Mainstream Realism Realist

Author:Tony Kushner

“A lot of the drive to make narratives came from having to play by myself as a 5- or 6-year-old in the woods.”

Years Play Woods Narrative

Author:Matthew Tobin Anderson

“The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship, upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.”

Source: Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile

“The young today cannot follow narrative but they are alert to drama. They cannot bear description but they love landscape and action.”

Today Action Young Bears Drama Landscape Narrative Description

Book:Letters of Marshall McLuhan

Source: Letters of Marshall McLuhan

“If you agree with me that a poem can be as bountiful as a rich Victorian narrative, and as wise... then you'll want to join me here in the Wow, I Like No Need of Sympathy Club. Your membership fee is the same as your membership privileges: this book.”

Ifs Want Needs Book Rich Wise Agree Privilege Clubs Narrative Wow Fees Victorian Membership

Author:Albert Goldbarth

“First, it is not unimportant that the legislative texts of the Old Testament are placed in the mouth of Moses and within the narrative framework of the sojourn at Sinai.”

Firsts Mouths Narrative Testament Framework Moses Old Testament Unimportant Sinai

Author:Paul Ricoeur

“This tough-love, winner-take-all narrative dominating policymaking is far too limited a way to think about how a complex, modern, diverse economy like ours expands and thrives. The strongest periods of economic growth in the 20th century were also times when incomes rose across the board.”

“I am not given to making sense out of life - or coming up with some grand narrative on it - other than to measure it by what you think you want to do in life. As for me, I have done what I had wanted to, to the best of my ability. I am satisfied.”

Thinking Want Done Wanted Given Ability Satisfied Narrative Make Sense

Author:Lee Kuan Yew

“I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative.”

Fiction Narrative Distinction Nonfiction Propositions

Book:Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution:: Selected Essays, 1977-1992

Source: Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution:: Selected Essays, 1977-1992

“No matter how stark the reality, a human being fits it into a narrative that is palatable.”

Humans Matter Reality Human Beings Fit Narrative Starks Stark Reality

Author:Joshua Prager

“In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.”

Knows Writing Trying Might Happened Honest Source Evidence Accounts Accepted Narrative Clue Detectives

Author:Victor Davis Hanson

“I would have had the same narrative, regardless of the atmosphere and the restrictions.”

Narrative Atmosphere Restriction

Author:Asghar Farhadi

“Stories are different every time you tell them - they allow so many possible narratives.”

Different Stories Narrative

Author:David Antin

“A lot of my early career, I wrote story songs that had narratives, that had plots.”

Stories Song Careers Narrative Plot

Author:Rupert Holmes

“I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.”

Writing May Art Made Book Bigs Grows Mankind Connections Preparation Narrative Fancy Weary Quotations Illustration Big Book

Book:Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Source: Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

“Redheaded Peckerwood, which unerringly walks the fine line between fiction and nonfiction, is a disturbingly beautiful narrative about unfathomable violence and its place on the land”

Beautiful Lines Walks Fiction Violence Land Fine Narrative Nonfiction Fine Lines Unfathomable Fiction And Nonfiction

Author:Luc Sante

“Nostalgia keeps dissolving the ironic narratives in which I have contained my past.”

Past Nostalgia Narrative Ironic My Past Dissolving

Author:Mason Cooley

“The language of chemistry simply does not mesh with that of biology. Chemistry is about substances and how they react, whereas biology appeals to concepts such as information and organisation. Informational narratives permeate biology.”

Doe Language Information Concepts Appeals Narrative Substance Biology Chemistry Organisation Mesh

Author:Paul Davies

“Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another: a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth. This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life: the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler, the misunderstanding at the office. Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.”

“Most people who seek attention and regard by announcing that they're writing a novel are actually so devoid of narrative talent that they can't hold the attention of a dinner table for thirty seconds, even with a dirty joke.”

People Writing Attention Novel Talent Jokes Regard Tables Dinner Narrative Dirty Thirty Seconds Dinner Table Announcing Dirty Jokes

Book:Bad Or, the Dumbing of America

Source: Bad Or, the Dumbing of America

“I think many people need, even require, a narrative version of their life. I seem to be one of them. Writing memoir is, in some ways, a work of wholeness.”

People Thinking Way Needs Writing Seems Memoir Versions Narrative Wholeness

Author:Sue Monk Kidd

“What gets left out is the narrative between the bullets, which would tell us who's going to do what and how we're going to achieve the generic goals on the list.”

Left Goal Achieve Lists Narrative Bullets Left Out Generic

Author:Edward Tufte

“Narrative art, the novel, from Murasaki to Proust, has produced great works of poetry.”

Art Novel Narrative Great Work Proust Narrative Art

Author:Eugenio Montale

“I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets.”

Wanted Literature Voice Narrative Sonnet Shakespeare's Sonnets

Author:Diane Wakoski

“With fiction, you can talk about plot, character and narrative, whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with.”

Character Facts Home Happens Literature Language Stuff Term Deals Fiction Narrative Plot

Author:Terry Eagleton

“Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too.”

Ifs Wells Important Use Ability Storytelling Narrative

Author:Howard Gardner

“Music is the subliminal connecting adhesive in film, or at least in narrative feature films.”

Film Music Is Narrative Features Connecting Subliminal Subliminal Messages Adhesive

Author:Carter Burwell

“An action movie should, like any other, follow the narrative traditions of literature. That means there should be subtlety, a slow build and a gradual bringing together of all the separate threads of the plot. To see all of it coming together slowly is very rewarding for the audience.”

Should Mean Action Together Literature Audience Tradition Narrative Plot Thread Subtlety Action Movie Coming Together

Author:Shane Black

“I had never thought that I would be involved in narrative structures. As a young guy, I was more interested in abstract modeling. But as I got older, I began to see that there was no reason to limit myself to any intellectual or conceptual postulate, when in fact I'm a professional student of music.”

Reason Facts Would Be Young Guy Students Involved Limits Intellectual Structure Narrative Abstract No Reason Modeling Young Guys Narrative Structure

Author:Anthony Braxton

“I learned there's an amazing unexplored territory in terms of narrative. Before, I thought the unexplored territory was the form, the way you shoot a movie. Now, I'm learning about the beautiful marriage between form and narrative.”

Way Beautiful Form Term Narrative Territory Unexplored Beautiful Marriage

Author:Alfonso Cuaron

“I don't believe that narrative works when it's trying to teach a lesson or speak a factual truth.”

Trying Believe Speak Teach Lessons Don't Believe Narrative Factual

Author:Shane Carruth

“I've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages.”

Thinking Kind Facts Stories Might Novel Willing Pages Productions Enjoyed Narrative

Author:Matthew Tobin Anderson

“Director Gary Ross has created an adaptation that is faithful in both narrative and theme, but he's also brought a rich and powerful vision of Panem, its brutality and excesses, to the film as well. His world building's fantastic, whether it be the Seam or the Capitol.”

World Wells Film Powerful Vision Rich Building Directors Fantastic Narrative Faithful Theme Excess Adaptation Brutality Capitol Gary

Author:Suzanne Collins

“My stories are sometimes closer to poems or meditations, but often there is at least a little narrative in them.”

Littles Sometimes Stories Meditation Narrative

Author:Lydia Davis

“I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.”

Ifs Admire Narrative

Author:Ava DuVernay

“In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.”

Situation Narrative Documentaries Chronicles Truth Will Come Out

Author:Ava DuVernay

“I'm quite interested in the absolute roots of narrative, why we tell stories at all: where the monsters come from.”

Stories Roots Absolutes Monsters Narrative

Author:Anne Enright

“When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.”

Able Found Voice Boys Suicide Narrative Reports Strict Virgins Virgin Suicides Narrative Voice Strict Rules

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“I create fictional narratives, but it's based on literal people.”

People Narrative Literal

Author:Danai Gurira

“In every debate, whatever the format, whatever the questions, there is one and only one way to identify the winner: Who commands the room? Who drives the narrative? Who is in charge?”

Way Rooms Debate Command One Way Winner Narrative Format

Author:Jeff Greenfield

“It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.”

Should Humans Wells May Character Stories Seems Spirit Imagination Vision Adventure Drama Intellect Narrative Historian Portraits Human Spirit Incidents

Author:Peter Ackroyd

“I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.”

Ifs Thinking Want Book Past Novel Written Conservative Narrative

Author:Alan Furst

“There's a reason the Exodus story has inspired so many Americans. It's a narrative of hope.”

Reason Stories Inspired Narrative Exodus

Author:Bruce Feiler

“The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.”

Writing Firsts Stories Bigs Film Struggle Written Materials Lessons Adults Complexes Narrative Piano Sophisticated Piano Lesson

Author:Jane Campion

“I love movies, I love television, I love narratives of all kinds.”

Kind Television All Kinds Narrative Movie Love

Author:Michael Cunningham

“In my opinion, the most significant works of the twentieth century are those that rise beyond the conceptual tyranny of genre; they are, at the same time, poetry, criticism, narrative, drama, etc.”

Opinion Century Drama Criticism Significant Tyranny Narrative Genre Etc Twentieth Century Time Poetry

Author:Juan Goytisolo

“My mom used to tell me stories at night, read books to me - and I read 'em over and over and over again. And you know what I learned from that? I went back and looked at everything - Why do I like reading the same stories over and over and over again? What, was I some kind of nincompoop? No - the narrative gave me connection with my mom.”

Knows Kind Book Stories Used Night Reading Mom Connections My Mom Narrative Ems

Author:Peter Guber

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Narrative Quotes