Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside?
I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself.
Women know things that men will never know. We keep the best secrets. We tell the best stories.
Some stories stayed with you even when you wanted to forget them.
Stories are the only enchantment possible, for when we begin to see our suffering as a story, we are saved.
As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail.
If you lead a simple life, and that story is written, then that story will not satisfy. It needs an angle. Suppose there is no angle?
If you tell an amateur that his story is not good, he always declares indignantly: ‘Oh, but it really happened just like this!’ The writer who doesn’t understand that this is beside the point is not a writer at all.
Style is not an end in itself, it is only a means to an end – the means of telling a story.
We may come from different places and have different stories, but we share common hopes, and one very American dream.
Life takes its own turns, makes its own demands, writes its own story, and along the way, we start to realize we are not the author.
Out of pain and problems have come the sweetest songs, the most poignant poems, the most gripping stories.
If you own this story you get to write the ending.
Maybe stories are just data with a soul.
Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism.
Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can’t survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.
Share with people who have earned the right to hear your story.
We all have stories we’re living and telling ourselves.
Time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of glory days.
Your success story is a bigger story than whatever you’re trying to say on stage. Success makes life easier. It doesn’t make living easier.