Tell Me A Story Quotes

#1. Books are a weird collaboration between author and reader: You trust me to tell a good story, and I trust you to bring it to good life in your mind.

John Green

#2. If this is a sad story, don't tell it to me tonight.'It is not sad,' she said. 'Only some things happen and are there for always even though you forget why or when.

Jean Rhys

#3. My scars tell a story. They are a reminder of times when life tried to break me, but failed. They are markings of where the structure of my character was welded.

Steve Maraboli

#4. And I? I drink, I burn, I gather dreams.
And sometimes I tell a story. Because Promethea asks me for a bowl of words before she goes to sleep.

Helene Cixous

#5. Basically for me a story can be anything. Anything you tell me, anything I read in the newspaper, in any mode. I don't have any restrictions.

T.C. Boyle

#6. Once upon
a dream
in a blanket
of night sky
you asked me
to tell you a story
which began with
us holding hands.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

#7. Well, we're originally from Glace Bay."

Grandma Elsie's eyes glittered. She was looking at one of her own, a lost Cape Bretoner in need of help and offering a new story. "Tell me all about it, dear.

Beatrice Rose Roberts

#8. Don't go yet. Please. Tell me a story, one about us. Tell what it meant. How on earth did it happen? The story, Pat - tell it to me.

Pat Conroy

#9. I began to learn about the camera and the actors. That gave me a lot of the skills. At the same time, advertising gives you a lot of vices, for example, an obsession for a superficial look, but at the same time, it gives you the capacity to synthesize the story - tell a story in one minute.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

#10. I'm the least confident person in so many ways. But I believed that if somebody gave me the chance to tell a story, I would tell a story [well enough] that the person who gave me the chance would get their money back.

Joss Whedon

#11. I was working at a restaurant in L.A. when a producer came in. He said I should audition for this movie 'Cellular.' I did, and I got the part. It actually makes me sick to tell that story because it's obnoxious.

Mircea Monroe

#12. I never try to give a message in my books. It's about living with characters long enough to hear their voices and let them tell me the story. Sometimes I would love to have a happy ending, and it doesn't happen because the character or the story leads me in another direction.

Isabel Allende

#13. You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyper-intelligent pandimensional beings. Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten-million-year research program ... . Let me tell you the whole story. It'll take a little time.

Douglas Adams

#14. There are a million ideas in a world of stories. Humans are storytelling animals. Everything's a story, everyone's got stories, we're perceiving stories, we're interested in stories. So to me, the big nut to crack is to how to tell a story, what's the right way to tell a particular story.

Richard Linklater

#15. The writing can be its own reward, as you discover more things that you can do. It counts a lot, though, when a story connects with a reader and they take the time to tell me about it.

Nick Earls

#16. If you feel like it, come with me. I will tell you a story.

Markus Zusak

#17. When Cecily comes to sit beside me, we rest our heads together and I tell her a final story about the twins. The one whose grief drove him to set the country ablaze. And the one who found a way to love her captor.

Lauren DeStefano

#18. I've done so many movies with first-time directors, and honestly I just go with gut instinct. People that usually can tell me a good story, and talk to me about why the movie is the movie they want to make. I just go with my gut.

Neal H. Moritz

#19. If a good editor will let me tell my story with the right artist, I'm happy.

Brian K. Vaughan

#20. Why would you save me?
Because you, mouse, can tell Gregory a story. Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.'
- A Tale of Despereaux, Kate Dicamillo - P. 81

Kate DiCamillo

#21. This is the story of a man who went far away for a long time, just to play a game. The man is a game-player called 'Gurgeh'. The story starts with a battle that is not a battle, and ends with a game that is not a game. Me? I'll tell you about me later. This is how the story begins.

Anonymous

#22. People like to come up to me and tell me that I've got nice ink. Except these tattoos aren't just decorations. They are declarations. Every tattoo I have tells its own story about who I am. Drug-free. Honor. And a war against the system.

CM Punk

#23. O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story ...
O, I die, Horatio;

William Shakespeare

#24. I already love acting and I love actors, so being able to communicate with actors and to bring performances out of them, and to tell a story and aid them, is really exciting for me.

Eric Balfour

#25. Saying my story makes me want to change it, make it sound pretty the way I do with the stories I tell the workers. I'd like it to have a beginning as grand as a ball and an ending in a whisper, like a mother tucking in a child for sleep.

Shannon Hale

#26. I always tell people I write songs, but I'm a writer. It's a difference. I can write songs to music, but I can write a story. I can see ideas spark in me.

Ester Dean

#27. It could be seen as narcissistic to have your own museum, but for me, it's such a long time ago - I have perspective. That young man in the funny clothes - he's almost a stranger, so I can tell his story.

Bjorn Ulvaeus

#28. Hold it. You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the three bears eat the three little pigs, and then the bears join up with the big bad wolf and eat Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood! Tell me a story like that, OK?

Bill Watterson

#29. Tell me something wonderful- a story that's startling and marvelous.

Julie Eshbaugh

#30. No doubt you are wondering what you will find, out there.' The Commandant said it for me.
'Well, it would be useless for me to try and tell you. The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it ...

Robert Edison Fulton Jr.

#31. Tell me half a cup's worth of story and we'll call it a night.

Kelley Armstrong

#32. I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them.

Isabel Allende

#33. Bones tell me the story of a person's life - how old they were, what their gender was, their ancestral background.

Kathy Reichs

#34. Could there be a cowgirl in my future? You know, I never know what character is going to come and tap me on the shoulder and say, 'Hey, tell my story.' So maybe the next one will have boots.

Susan Isaacs

#35. In my own life, I've written scripts that I want to direct, so I would love to take my own creativity in a way where I could tell my own story. That does inspire me, the idea of becoming a director.

Heather Graham

#36. The manuscript is not the story." It took me a minute to get that the first time I heard it, so I'll say it again: The manuscript is not the story. The manuscript is where we put down the words we're using to tell the story; it is not the story itself.

Bridget McKenna

#37. I smile quietly. She is with me all the time. I feel stupid now, for not seeing it sooner. But hey, at least we'll have this strange story to tell, love and death and blood and daddy-issues. And holy crap, I am a psychiatrist's wet dream.- Cas Lowood, Anna Dressed in Blood

Kendare Blake

#38. Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me.

Plutarch

#39. My dad came over to the house ... went into his pocket and pulled out a handful of money, and began to pass it out to the children ... This was the same man who, when I was his child, I would ask him for 50 cents, this man would tell me his life's story.

Bill Cosby

#40. Comic strips introduced me to metaphors. They are pure metaphor, so you learn how to tell a story with symbols, which is a very valuable thing to learn. And I learned that from motion pictures, too, and from poetry. Poetry is mainly metaphor. If it doesn't have a metaphor, it doesn't work.

Ray Bradbury

#41. Fiction is truth. I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was. My whole effort is to remove that distinction. The writer is the midwife of understanding. It's very important for me to tell politics like a story, to make it real.

Arundhati Roy

#42. What excites me about picture books is the gap between pictures and words. Sometimes the pictures can tell a slightly different story or tell more about the story, about how someone is thinking or feeling.

Anthony Browne

#43. In the Afghan people, I found the most resilient, welcoming people who, for the first time in my career, never judged me over my right to tell this story - as a woman or a foreigner. A people who cherish their culture and history and the films that have captured that culture.

Pietra Brettkelly

#44. For me, it doesn't matter whether it's a comedy, a Western or horror. As long as you've got a good story to tell, the genre almost doesn't matter. As an actor playing the role, it's all rooted in reality.

Patrick Wilson

#45. What seems most significant to me about our movement [Impressionism] is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

#46. I am one man with a laptop. When I give the world my characters, it's because I don't want to keep them for myself. You don't like what I made them do? Fucking tell me I'm wrong! Rewrite the story. Throw in a new plot twist. Make up your own ending.

J.C. Lillis

#47. Although I use myself in my videos, I really see myself as a character. When I look at myself, when I sit and edit, I never think, "That's me." I think, "This is a character, and how do I edit this to tell a story?"

Laurel Nakadate

#48. It's a good story,' he said. He even grinned at me. 'I'll tell you.'
'Please,' I said.
And then he did.

Hanya Yanagihara

#49. Each story has a different approach for me and I try to work with lighting that will tell you visually the story better than if it was shot in available light.

Vilmos Zsigmond

#50. Everyone has a story to tell...Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine.

Mimi Tulane

#51. If I can build a coalition of people who are interested in what I have to say and what I'm thinking, I hope they'll come with me if I want to go tell a story that doesn't have dinosaurs in it - which I plan to do.

Colin Trevorrow

#52. I don't want you to write about what you know, because you don't know anything. I don't want to hear about your boyfriend or your grandma ... I'm getting a little tired of 'my life story as fiction'. Please don't tell me about your little life - is there nothing larger? More important?

Toni Morrison

#53. I don't think nostalgia is very useful to me. There is a story to be told, there's behaviour to create or to bring to the screen that will help tell that story, and nostalgia is just not really a big part of my emotional package.

Harrison Ford

#54. For a long time, I was portrayed as the Osama bin Laden of the Internet, and I really wanted to be able to tell my side of the story. I wanted to be able to explain exactly what I did and what I didn't do to people who thought they knew me.

Kevin Mitnick

#55. I think no one but me has the right to write about my life as I want to write it in a particular way. I don't think any other person will be able to tell the story of my life like how I have approached it. It works best when it's written by someone who has experienced it herself.

Preity Zinta

#56. And then I want to come back here, light all these candles ... ' He kisses me again. ' ... and tell you a story about a lowly Irish peasant bartender who falls in love with a beautiful American princess.

K.A. Tucker

#57. A lot of banging in the head has built up over the decades, and for my own sanity, I needed to write. I wanted to see if I could tell an honest, organic story about characters that interest me.

Martin Donovan

#58. If eavesdropping on someone else's nightmares is supposed to make me feel better, I'd rather stay feeling like shit. I don't think telling them about my horror story would do me any good. And besides, I'm not even supposed to have a story to tell. - Nastya Kashnikov

Katja Millay

#59. I feel like I barely survived Django (Unchained) emotionally - the violence, hearing the N-word every day. It cost me a lot psychologically, but it was worth it to tell that story.

Kerry Washington

#60. A big producer offered me the part of the pretty girl that waits at home for the guy, and I couldn't do it. That's not a story I ever want to tell.

Brie Larson

#61. To me and my kind life itself is a story and we have to tell it in stories - that is the way it falls.

Rumer Godden

#62. TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.

Alan Bradley

#63. I couldn't have known 'Crank' was going to be published, let alone become a big hit. That book was very personal for me: I had to tell the story for myself.

Ellen Hopkins

#64. I hate you," Kingsley said.
"That hurts, King. That stings."
"Do you know what hurts? Having an erection and being two seconds from coming and your domme stops sucking you off."
"That is a very sad story. Tell me more."
"I've created a monster.

Tiffany Reisz

#65. Even when I do commercials, I try to tell a story about the product. With music, I try to tell the story of the person's struggle for success. And I believe every word I say. I never read anything on the air I don't believe in. I think people sense that about me, and they respond to it.

Casey Kasem

#66. I've always been interested in the Greek tragedies. A few years back, I re-read a translation of the 'The Oresteia,' and that stayed with me, and slowly this idea of using some of those old legends and plays to tell a new story about modern urban life began to form.

Peter Milligan

#67. Unfortunately I have no rags-to-riches story to tell. Money never played a big role for me. My parents just had it.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou

#68. For me, when I see movies where I kind of know who the characters are and what the situation is, I get bored. To me, it's, "How do I tell a story that will keep the audience engaged?" A great story does that: it's not exactly what you expect.

Richard Shepard

#69. This is the value for me of writing books that children read. Children aren't interested in your appalling self-consciousness. They want to know what happens next. They force you to tell a story.

Philip Pullman

#70. Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences.

Abbas Kiarostami

#71. A Writer says: read what I have written An historian says: listen to my lecture A critic says: listen to what I think A journalist says: let me tell you a story.

Gideon Haigh

#72. I'm a music storyteller and collaborator. I hear character, location, and story as music. For me a score is there to both heighten the story and to actually tell the story with the unique emotional and narrative powers of music.

David Raiklen

#73. Handing me a pen is like handy a madman a knife ... at the end of it you know you'll end up with a lot of broken bones, blood, and bodies - but it'll be one hell of a story to tell your friends.

D.E.M. Emrys

#74. The way I think of my work is that I have to think up the way to tell a story, starting from scratch. The changes in the industry concern me in a general way because I think civilization is doomed.

Aleksandar Hemon

#75. To me, he is art, poetry for the eyes and heart. He is the most terrifyingly beautiful guy I have ever seen. And his scars have to tell a story ...

Jessica Sorensen

#76. Trust me when I tell you, Eaton boy, that resisting is worth doing.

Veronica Roth

#77. For me, nudity and strong language have never been huge loadbearing elements of how I like to tell a story. Graphic images certainly are.

Bryan Fuller

#78. I've had frustrated storytelling juices that have been lying dormant for a long time, and I guess the documentary was a way of me telling a story that I felt most qualified to tell. And I loved it, and I'd love to do something else someday, probably more narrative-based. But I'm in no rush.

Eric Bana

#79. I am more of a visual person than a verbal person. For me, I think, the excitement is the fact that I found a way of telling the story as I want to tell it, in a medium that I could master.

George Lucas

#80. I detest the word plot. I never, never think of plot. I think only and solely of character. Give me the characters; I'll tell you a story-maybe a thousand stories. The interaction between and among human beings is the only story worth telling.

Stirling Silliphant

#81. I look for the moment(s) in the story where the writer risked abandoning the glory of the self in favor of the possible relationship with an other. I don't ever let the market tell me what a memoir is. The first best memoir I ever read was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

Lidia Yuknavitch

#82. I'm giving away my family's story. Who owns the family's story? I don't. But you could turn it around and ask, 'Who is to deny me to write my family's story?' I have hurt people, but I don't think in a dangerous way. But you can't tell.

Karl Ove Knausgaard

#83. It's a lot to ask, but I need you to listen to a story that I've never told anyone,' Varg answered.
'Why would listening be a lot to ask?' Milea inquired.
Varg paused. 'Because the story I am about to tell you may make you see me as a monster.

Brittany Comeaux

#84. I always like to play roles where I either love the character or think that it's a story that I can tell better than anyone else. There are always reasons for me to do whatever I do.

Tammy Blanchard

#85. I try to let go of the intellect and just tell the story. I only read the page I have in front of me on the screen. Then when the whole story is told, I print it, wait a week and read it.

Isabel Allende

#86. I like for jewelry to tell a story and to be able to talk about what I'm wearing. That's more important to me than a name, brand, or label.

Nikki Reed

#87. To me, healing means you have to recognize there is a wound and you try to understand what the sources of the wound are, which means you try to tell a story about how it came to be. So you have to engage in some historical interpretation.

Cornel West

#88. You need supporting actors to help to tell the story. For me, I'm lucky to be a part of the films. Being an actor, I'll take any role, whether it's supporting or leading.

Robert Maillet

#89. If it's commercial fiction that you want to write, it's story, story, story. You've got to get a story where if you tell it to somebody in a paragraph, they'll go, "Tell me more." And then when you start to write it, they continue to want to read more. And if you don't, it won't work.

James Patterson

#90. I have a blog where I keep in touch with my fans. I write about things that are important to me. Sometimes on there I'll just tell a little story about the things that happen in my everyday life. People seem to enjoy them well enough.

Patrick Rothfuss

#91. The whole idea of a festival to me is that filmmakers get to interact. You see someone strolling, you get to meet them and tell them you like their work, you admire their story.

Seymour Cassel

#92. To ask for a map is to say, "Tell me a story."

Peter Turchi

#93. I don't really mess with Instagram much, but I get why people love it. Because to me, it's better to tell a story through a picture than 140 characters.

Rashida Jones

#94. If you tell me, it's an essay. If you show me, it's a story.

Barbara Greene

#95. Now, as for this new breed of musicians with their 'ultrasonic' conservatory technique, I say: So What. Tell me a story from the heart of your soul and what your existence in this Universe is all about!

Woody Shaw

#96. I'm not saying we had a playroom, but I'm not shocked by [the sex in the book]. It's essential to tell the story. I can't believe films that don't invoke a sexual side of it. So it works for me.

Jamie Dornan

#97. All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story ... You've got good characters ... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

Suzanne Collins

#98. My dad has a great expression. He always says, 'Tell me a fact and I'll learn, tell me the truth and I believe, but tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.' Interestingly enough now, my dad's story is going to be in Canton and hopefully that will live forever, too.

Steve Sabol

#99. The state of mind which I put myself when I tell a story is one in which superstition flourishes very easily. And I welcome that because it helps me.

Philip Pullman

#100. I've tried to tell a story. For me, it is the best one.

Amanda Lear