Top 100 Tell The Story Quotes
#1. What I'm trying to do in [Winter Journal] is to tell the story of a man's life from birth, but there are different versions of him, four different versions.
Paul Auster
#2. A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how you tell the story is the main thing.
Christopher Nolan
#3. It's the responsibility of the survivor to tell the story.
Tom Spanbauer
#4. I used mythology to tell the story [in Living with Love], with the story of the minotaur and the matador and fighting and fighting for love and the color red and flowers and horns and death and naked men. You know, the important things in life.
Madonna Ciccone
#5. It's about stories. If I can tell the story to America, whether it's Riesling or a boxer from Harlem, it will sell. I know on my gravestone it's going to be, 'Storyteller.'
Gary Vaynerchuk
#6. No one has ever been able to control his thinking, although people may tell the story of how they have. I don't let go of my thoughts-I meet them with understanding. Then they let go of me.
Byron Katie
#7. I have found, writing a blog, that being non-opaque is necessary. You pretty much have to say what you know in much more firm terms or risk that the legions who always know more than you do will tell the story better.
Kara Swisher
#8. Perhaps the only happily ever after is to survive to tell the story
Kat Howard
#9. He, too, wanted to tell the story of our adventure in his own way. Praise
Laila Lalami
#10. I'm always looking in the lighting to tell the story in a different way than it actually looks in real life because it's, for me, more contrast sometimes has to mean it's softer than normal.
Vilmos Zsigmond
#11. You can't tell the story of the women's movement through the story of one woman.
Dyllan McGee
#12. As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.
Julianna Baggott
#13. I don't care whether the story is real or fantastical. I tell the story that needs to be told.
Jane Yolen
#14. I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.
Joyce Carol Oates
#15. We can't get away with anything with children. They are keen and attentive, and they will eventually grow up to tell the story of their home.
Sarah Mae
#16. My mission is to tell the story of the birth of ourselves as a universal humanity, awakening all of us to our unique opportunity to participate through our own conscious evolution.
Barbara Marx Hubbard
#17. People who are left alone tell the story but are never a part of it; those who are a part of the crowd, are story bound, acting upon the role assigned to them in the theater of living, loving and longing.
Aporva Kala
#18. You can't rely on the acting to tell the story.
David Mamet
#19. The greatest directors are the greatest users. They use people's talents to tell the story that they want to tell.
Janusz Kaminski
#20. Tell a story! Don't try to impress your reader with style or vocabulary or neatly turned phrases. Tell the story first!
Anne McCaffrey
#21. The highest admiration I have for my colleagues is not for someone in a studio in New York but for somebody on the ground in places that they've gone to fight to tell the story.
Charlie Rose
#22. Secular writers can tell a story about the physical, the emotional, and the intellectual parts of a character. But no matter how well they tell the story, they miss a facet that is innately part of all of us - the spiritual.
Karen Kingsbury
#23. Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.
Alfred Hitchcock
#24. My job as an author is to tell the story in the best way possible, to make it flow seamlessly and get the reader to keep turning the page.
Patrick Carman
#25. Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.
Jennifer Weiner
#26. I felt that as long as we were being honest, and that we didn't bend the truth to accomplish another goal, to be entertaining or to be a happy ending, I was confident that we'd be able to tell the story the way it happened.
Ted Demme
#27. I make such big efforts to forget things and I can't tell the story of my life because, thank God, I'm still living it.
Karl Lagerfeld
#28. Films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is. You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in.
Gael Garcia Bernal
#29. But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it.
Diana Gabaldon
#30. But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story.
Laura Hillenbrand
#31. Your calling may be to find new ways to tell the story of redemption, to create fresh symbols tat will speak of a home for the homeless, the end of exile, the replanting of the garden, the rebuilding of the house.
N. T. Wright
#32. Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it's simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is.
Ang Lee
#33. I think, even a lot of people that make movies forget is that, in my mind, a movie should work with the sound off. You should be able to watch a movie without the sound and understand what's going on. That's your job, to build a series of chronological images that tell the story.
Channing Tatum
#34. America is a nation of prayer. It's impossible to tell the story of our nation without telling the story of people who pray.
George W. Bush
#36. I may not live to see our glory
But I will gladly join the fight
And when our children tell our story
They'll tell the story of tonight
Lin-Manuel Miranda
#37. If your parents are still alive, call them today and ask them to describe the day you were born. Write the details down here, on the following pages. Tell the story every year on your birthday until you know it by heart.
Amy Poehler
#38. I think Spider-Man [film], the first one particularly, really figured out the formula of, "Oh, tell the story that they told in the comic. It was compelling. That's why it's iconic."
Joss Whedon
#39. I do think the challenge, in a way for me, is to write a narrative film and when you finish watching it you feel like it's a collage. You tell the narrative, you tell the story, but you feel like you've created this tapestry. But it also has a shape, a story.
Shane Black
#40. One of the things I've always tried to do in filmmaking is that you don't tell the story, you try to show it.
Rick Heinrichs
#41. Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at
Nora Ephron
#42. Tell the story you want to tell, and let it be as long as it needs to be. Worry about marketing it later.
Patricia C. Wrede
#43. And Nedley started saying,'Shut Up!Quit that! And i knew it really meant something to him. So I asked for his help,"Mark said. "Don't tell the story like that," Nedley laughed. "What he said was 'Quit pretendin you're a bad guy I need your help, and I need it now!
Margaret Peterson Haddix
#44. That sort of detailed filmmaking is one, hard to do and not have it be pretentious, and two, have it tell the story, which is what you're taught, that cinema is the language of images and you really should be able to make a film with no dialogue and tell a story.
Nicole Kidman
#45. I don't think action for action's sake is so fun, but when it helps tell the story, I love doing a good fight scene.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#46. I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on.
Kazuo Ishiguro
#47. Lettering should be invisible. You shouldn't notice it, unless it is a determined piece of storytelling in graphic design. Whether handmade or digital, the lettering should be easy on the eye and well placed. It should help tell the story and do nothing to get in the way of it.
Brian Michael Bendis
#48. Sometimes, in a fictional story, you can be more honest and truthful, actually. As a journalist, you're a prisoner of the data, in effect. You have to tell the story with evidence you can verify.
Peter Landesman
#49. I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.
Ida B. Wells
#50. I always try to tell the story the best possible way. I create the mood for each scene in a way that the audience feels that they are right there with me and they feel actually in the mood that was right for the scene.
Vilmos Zsigmond
#51. social isolation and lack of self awareness can occur partly because there are simply no words to tell the story.
Onno Van Der Hart
#52. If you tell the story emotionally in a truthful way, then you start naturally looking at the landscape and thinking "Wow, we have to watch out."
Viggo Mortensen
#53. The only thing that remained consistent over the years was my ability and enthusiasm to tell the story.
Herb Trimpe
#54. I think you have to pick and choose what is most important to tell the story.
Patrick Wilson
#55. I think 'Overlord' has definitely benefited because I work with every single level designer, and working where we have space to tell the story. That's what it's all about - getting writers and storytellers involved in the team and being a back and forth process.
Rhianna Pratchett
#56. When my father made 'Jean de Florette' and 'Manon des Sources' back to back, everybody said, 'Why two movies?' But you need two movies to show how criminality evolves, and to tell the story: You can't show a man in love with so many women in one big biopic.
Thomas Langmann
#57. I'm a very traditional person. The tattoos are about my grandmother dying and they tell the story about my mother and father, my brothers and my sister, my kids. It's pretty much a family tree on my arm with my life in football too.
Timothy F. Cahill
#58. All that man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love-to sing, and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.
Henry David Thoreau
#59. The present rearranges the past. We never tell the story whole because a life isn't a story; it's a whole Milky Way of events and we are forever picking out constellations from it to fit who and where we are.
Rebecca Solnit
#60. The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film.
Harrison Ford
#61. I love the opportunity to tell the story about the characters through the music.
Alex Kurtzman
#62. I'm an old storyteller. [When] I tell the story, it's about the story.
Nikki Giovanni
#63. As a journalist, the details always tell the story.
James McBride
#64. Those lyrics tell the story Dahlia, our story. I wrote that song five years ago and even now when I sing it, your face is the face I see. You're unforgettable Dahlia. You're perfect, really.
Kim Karr
#65. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with Truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments; it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography.
Mahatma Gandhi
#66. Q. How many docents does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Two. One to remove the old lightbulb and the other to tell the story behind it.
Ron Brackin
#67. There are two ways to tell the story. Funny or sad. Guys like it funny, with lots of gore and a grin on your face when you get to the end. Girls like it sad, with a thousand-yard stare out to the distance as you gaze upon the horrors of war they can't quite see. Either way, it's the same story.
Phil Klay
#69. You must remind me: "Edith! Speak up! Tell the story." It has been more than half a century. I suppose it is time.
Edith Hahn Beer
#70. Everyone's taste is different. But I think the best way to defend against regrets after opening night is to try your best to tell the story you want to tell. In terms of smaller changes over time, I think good plays are like poems. Every syllable counts.
Stephen Karam
#71. When you're writing for a show, you're writing part of the script. You have to tell the story.
Adam Schlesinger
#72. A lot of people we tell the story to assume that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were actually part of the original Washington Irving story, which only happens to be 17 pages. It's a great starting point, and then we built on it, very much in a logical progression.
Roberto Orci
#73. I can be an artist a posteriori, not a priori. If my pictures tell the story, our story, human story, then in a hundred years, then they can be considered an art reference, but now they are not made as art. I'm a journalist. My life's on the road, my studio is the planet.
Sebastiao Salgado
#74. I guess you can stay sort of true to the story; you don't have to artificially bring the character back from whatever doom you've designed for them, you can tell the story, I suppose, honestly.
Garth Ennis
#75. Too many musicians rush through everything with too many notes. I need time to take the picture. A ballad should be a ballad. It's important to understand what the song is saying, and learn how to tell the story. It takes time. I can't rush it. I really can't rush it.
Shirley Horn
#76. I didn't want to tell the story of what makes two people come together, although that's a theme of great power and universality. I wanted to find out what it takes for two people to stay together for fifty years
or more. I wanted to tell not the story of courtship, but the story of marriage.
Diana Gabaldon
#77. You have to be a great storyteller. And you have to master the tools that you have to tell the story which are, inorder of importance, the script, the actors and then thetechnical means.
John Frankenheimer
#78. I never make notes; just a few small details when I'm writing, but nothing much. The plot is never written down. I will tell the story to myself, but I won't plan it. I'll speak the narrative in my head for a while.
Ruth Rendell
#79. Tell the story that's in your heart. Write for your own pleasure, not anyone else's. Then, if and when you're ready, find a reputable editor who will be honest with you about the quality of your book and your chances of publication. But never, ever, stop enjoying writing or you will be lost
Jane Cable
#80. I read somewhere that a man should tell the story of his life at the age of forty, and this deadline is fast approaching as I write these lines, only a few short weeks remain before this ominous birthday arrives.
Juan Gabriel Vasquez
#81. And so long as you say 'one' instead of 'I,' there's nothing in it and one can easily tell the story; but as soon as you admit to yourself that it is yourself you feel as though transfixed and horrified.
Franz Kafka
#82. Those bad times are important. They give you a chance to practice, listen, take stock, have a life, get your feet back on the ground, and maybe you'll live to tell the story.
Levon Helm
#83. If you want to write books to get famous, the books will suck.Write books to tell the story you want to tell and for no other reason.
Lori Lesko
#84. I like directing much better. It's more fun, that's all there is to it. It's essentially the same job, which is storytelling, but you have more control over the way you want to tell the story. It's a high. I love it.
Mel Gibson
#85. I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?
Joyce Maynard
#86. If you just tell the story of what the storys about, then it sparks curiosity, but I think it also arouses suspicion, as you say, that it could be overly sentimental. But it so isnt. And I think it was all about doing the inner work and then underplaying everything.
Gerard Butler
#87. I think the most experimental way to a film is to tell the story the traditional way, because everyone is doing the other thing.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#88. Having an open dialogue, in any creative atmosphere, is really important to feeling free to tell the story the best way you can.
Nick Jonas
#89. I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself.
Sam Mendes
#90. As more people use social media to tell the story of the future, the wants and needs of more people will be reflected.
Simon Mainwaring
#91. It's very hard when you're doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.
Lily Rabe
#92. When you do not have the dialogue to explain things, you will use everything to show and to tell the story. I think that this is what makes you believe that it is impeccable.
Michel Hazanavicius
#93. I always try to describe the situation just as it is. I try to find sentences that I believe tell the story best. Even my articles are more literary than ordinary news stories.
Asne Seierstad
#94. There's a rumor that there may be an attempt at organizing a possible script for a series on my life, which, when you look at my police record, you'd have to have more than one hour to tell the story.
Merle Haggard
#95. I tell the story by feel most of the time, and I am not much given to labyrinthian digressions but seem to be naturally drawn to compression and pace, and the feelings come about on their own.
Daniel Woodrell
#96. If you're here right now in your life, your journey continues and you've lived to tell the story.
Mary J. Blige
#97. What theatre started to look at much earlier than any other form was the internal operations of ordinary people, sometimes using mythic models in order to tell the story.
Pete Townshend
#98. And so many of the kinds of labels you get stuck with don't really tell the story; Progressive, Art Rock, Noise Music, Downtown - it ends up being a struggle to stay out of debates that other people are having around you.
Fred Frith
#99. You can't tell the story of a 13-year-old boy who knows every lyric to 'Phantom of the Opera' without also referencing how much teasing he gets at school.
Tim Federle
#100. Your home should tell the story of who you are, and be a collection of what you love brought together under one roof.
Nate Berkus
