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Storytelling Quotes

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Storytelling Quotes

“In an economy that values the new, the instant next product, there’s so much pressure to keep producing. to churn things out, to prove your worth in output. But there’s deep value in revisiting what you’ve previously created. Sometimes the work you need is already written by you. like time travel of sorts, the now you travelled back in time to whisper these words because you would need them.”

“Fairy-tales are as old as language itself. Indeed, many linguistic scholars believe that language was invented simply so that humans could tell each other stories. Non-verbal communication is surprisingly effective, as anyone who has observed chimpanzees at the zoo can confirm. However, for humans to express more sophisticated ideas they needed a more subtle and complex form of communication. And so, about sixty thousand years ago, humans began telling each other stories. The purpose of these stories was manifold. On the one hand, they amused and entertained and brought comfort and consolation. On the other, they warned and enlightened and taught what was needed to be known.”

“Fairy tales have been with us for a very long time. Ever since humans invented language, we have used those sounds laden with meaning to create stories – to teach, to warn, to entertain, and to effect change upon the world. Those stories have been handed down through many generations – changing with each retelling, but still carrying within them the same wisdom and transformative power that has helped shape the human psyche.”

“Loren held out her hand. "It's been fun listening to your stories, Mr...." The old cook smiled. "Cussler, Clive Cussler. Mighty nice to have met you, ma'am." When they were on the road again, the Pierce Arrow and its trailer smoothly rolling toward the border crossing, Pitt turned to Loren. "For a moment there, I thought the old geezer might have given me a clue to the treasure site." "You mean Yaeger's far-out translation about a river running under an island?" "It still doesn't seem geologically possible." Loren turned the rearview mirror to reapply her lipstick. "If the river flowed deep enough it might conceivably pass under the Gulf." "Maybe, but there's no way in hell to know for certain without drilling through several kilometers of hard rock." "You'll be lucky just to find your way to the treasure cavern without a major excavation." Pitt smiled as he stared at the road ahead. "He could really spin the yarns, couldn't he?" "The old cook? He certainly had an active imagination." "I'm sorry I didn't get his name." Loren settled back in the seat and gazed out her window as the dunes gave way to a tapestry of mesquite and cactus. "He told me what it was." "And?" "It was an odd name." She paused, trying to remember. Then she shrugged in defeat. "Funny thing...I've already forgotten it.”

“If you want broad ownership of the company’s strategy and values, don’t inform people about the situation-problem-solution, give it to them as a story or sequence of stories.”

“Los niños obligan a los padres a buscar un pulso específico, una mirada, un ritmo, la manera correcta de contar una historia, a sabiendas de que las historias no arreglan nada ni salvan a nadie, pero quizás hacen del mundo un lugar más complejo y a la vez más tolerable. Y a veces, sólo a veces, más hermoso. Las historias son un modo de sustraer el futuro del pasado, la única forma de encontrar la claridad en retrospectiva.”

“But this is the power of storytelling, isn’t it? To make sense of the things we can’t figure out ourselves. We make up gods and monsters and origin stories and archetypes and tell each other it’s all explainable so we don’t have to feel the weight of the unknown. That’s the theory anyway. The practice is that we’re all so much better at seeing the faults of others, at watching them make their mistakes and judging from afar, our social telescopes so much more powerful than the microscopes we forget to use on ourselves.”

“When a story gets wedged in your head and refuses to go away, when it keeps coming back, again and again, despite your seeming inability to tell it, know this..the story has chosen you and You are ready, so tell it or it’ll haunt you to the end of your days. Characters too! They will find you, drop anchor and before you know, they will speak through you, shaping their own narrative, their own unique destiny. Let go and allow them. You have no option but to be a channel for them. This joy of surrender can only be felt… never truly explained.”

“The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary story-tellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy any one daring to pull them up for a trifle! But that's how they are caught.”

“Dance history is not only an academic or artistic undertaking. Dance history is human history. Dance history explores the intersection of the collective narrative with the human body. You can not understand history of dance without understanding how dance is the individuation of collective storytelling." Marquita Burke De Jesus, Associate Professor in Dance”

“But books were full of stories and stories were full of lies and lies hurt Jesus's feelings, so I didn't know what to think. I blamed my family. They were the ones who taught me so much about telling stories, and how not to do it, and then, in inspired moments of surprise, how to tell one so good you forgot what day it was, and I liked forgetting what day it was, so I made certain life choices that would allow me to get paid to forget what day it was and teach others to forget what day it was, which is, after all, what I think heaven probably is: the whole world, forgetting what day it is. You have to, I bet, with an endless supply of them.”

“I recalled the afternoon when the two of us stood beating erasers, and Camille confided that she'd done penance for stories - stories that I'll never know if she wrote or only imagined writing. She'd wanted me to tell her a secret from my dreams, a secret from my dreams I hadn't had as yet, and so I didn't quite understand what she was after. "It's about feeling," Camille had insisted. I didn't understand then that she was talking about risk.”