“The core of character lies in each individual story person's ability to care about something; to feel implicitly or explicitly that something is important.” FeelsWritingPersonsImportantCharacterStoriesCareLyingIndividualAbilityCore Book:Creating Characters: How to Build Story People Source: Creating Characters: How to Build Story People
“I value humor, kindness, and the ability to tell a good story far more than money, status, or the kind of car someone drives.” KindStoriesValuesAbilityKindnessCarGood Story Author:Rebecca Wells
“I come to writing from hearing great stories as a child in Louisiana, where the mark of a person was his or her ability to be a raconteur. I also come to writing as a professional actress whose body has been trained to listen and smell and inhabit characters without judgment.” WritingChildrenPersonsHas BeensCharacterStoriesBodyAbilityJudgmentMarkHearingSmellActressesLouisiana Author:Rebecca Wells
“Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader.” WholeStoriesReadingAsksImaginationAbilityCreativeWrittenReaderPagesWhole LifeLife ExperienceWritten WordCreative Imagination Author:Katherine Paterson
“People see their own lives as stories; a lifelong story with a single hero or heroine... much contemporary unhappiness is due to the fact that people in high tech societies receive neither strong myths and stories from their culture nor the ability to construct their own... they lose the plot.” PeopleFactsStoriesCultureStrongLosesAbilityLearningTeachingHeroDuesMythContemporaryPlotUnhappinessConstructsLifelongHeroines Author:Guy Claxton
“Lesson number one in trying to develop the ability of independent thought: Understand that EVERYTHING the government says has the potential to be lies and deception. You can believe it's the truth only after you question, exhaust every avenue, and find that their story checks out. If you're a patriot, it's your duty to always question your government anyway, at every turn. A patriot is loyal to his country and his countrymen, not his government.” IfsTryingBelieveCountryStoriesGovernmentLyingTurnsPoliticsAbilityNumbersDutyLessonsIndependentChecksDeceptionLoyalPatriotAvenuesCountrymenIndependent ThoughtEvery Avenue Author:Derek R. Audette
“Disgrace is a subtle, multi-layered story, as much concerned with politics as it is with the itch of male flesh. Coetzee's prose is chaste and lyrical without being self- conscious: it is a relief to encounter writing as quietly stylish as this. I was not totally convinced by Lurie's musical abilities, with regard to his proposed opera, but that is my sole complaint.” WritingSelfStoriesAbilityConsciousConcernedRegardMalesMusicalConvincedFleshEncountersProseReliefSubtleOperaSoleComplaintsDisgraceSelf ConsciousLyricalChasteStylishMusical AbilityCoetzee Author:Paul Bailey
“Her [ Onata April] great talent as an actress is that she has the ability to understand and listen to the scenario and what the story is, and then she can pretend and live that.” StoriesAbilityTalentActressesAprilScenariosGreat Talent Author:David A. Siegel
“I was given the ability to create stories and characters. That's my part of the long chain of writers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, and a host of others who eventually deliver literature to the world. I want to do for others what Eudora Welty did for me.” WorldWantLongCharacterStoriesLiteratureGivenAbilityChainsAgentsHostPublishersLibrarianBooksellers Author:Karl Marlantes
“What the American people hope - what they deserve - is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. For while the people who sent us here have different backgrounds, different stories, different beliefs, the anxieties they face are the same. The aspirations they hold are shared: a job that pays the bills; a chance to get ahead; most of all, the ability to give their children a better life.” PeopleGivingChildrenDifferentStoriesJobsFacesBeliefDifferencesChanceAbilityPayRepublicanAnxietyDeserveOvercomingWeightBillsDemocratBackgroundsAspirationBetter LifeGet AheadNumbingDifferent BackgroundsDifferent Beliefs Author:Barack Obama
“My talent is working very hard and having a decent nose. A good nose for a story and the ability to get a little bit dirty sometimes, to get a little bit physical sometimes chasing a story. And to feel it, I mean I feel it.” FeelsMeanLittlesSometimesHardStoriesBitsAbilityTalentLittle BitDirtyNosesDecentChasingWorking Very Hard Author:Steve Bunce
“Less and less frequently do we encounter people with the ability to tell a tale properly. More and more often there is embarrassment all around when the wish to hear a story is expressed. It is as if something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us: the ability to exchange our experiences...Experience has fallen in value. And it looks as if it is continuing to fall into bottomlessness.” PeopleIfsLooksStoriesValuesFallWishAbilityTakenPossessionTalesFallenEncountersContinuingIdealismEmbarrassment Author:Walter Benjamin
“All great literary works influence us as writers, not their stories as much as their storytelling ability.” StoriesAbilityInfluenceStorytellingLiterary WorksGreat Literary Author:Michael Scott
“First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it.... The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.” NeedsFirstsBookIdeasStoriesFormAbilityAcceptingNovelGutsImperfectUncertainRevision Book:Conversations with Bernard Malamud Source: Conversations with Bernard Malamud
“I got through with my ability to mimic others and make people laugh. I swaggered through life, but, in reality, I lived in fear pretty much every day. I acted like a completely normal person, and I suppose I was good at it. But, inside, it was a very different story.” PeoplePersonsDifferentStoriesRealityAbilityLaughingNormalMaking People Laugh Author:Paddy Considine
“My life story is something obviously that belongs to me very personally. And the fact of the matter is that I had choices and chances and opportunities that were provided to me, based on the way I was able to direct my own decision-making. And what I'm working to fight for is to make sure that all women have the ability to do that.” WayMatterFactsStoriesAbleChoicesFightingOpportunityChanceMy OwnAbilityDecisionDirectDecision MakingLife Story Author:Barack Obama
“Writing of history is our only heuristic principle. The Germans have a word for it, einfühlen. It is the ability to experience the past in the present and to recreate it. In my books, I have tried to recreate it in the most natural way possible: History must be integrated into the story without the weight of premonition.” WayWritingBookStoriesPastNaturalAbilityPrinciplesWeightIntegratedPremonitionHeuristics Author:Gore Vidal