Top 100 The Stories We Tell Quotes
#1. I think what I'm after, a lot of the time, is just honesty. What accounts for the fact that the stories we tell ourselves - the story we carry around and think of most often - are the dark ones? Maybe we have to wander around in the darkness to understand it?
Peter Orner
#2. What are the lessons intended in the stories we tell to our children today?
Gloria D. Gonsalves
#3. Psychologically, our reality derives from the stories we tell ourselves, at least the ones we believe.
Matthew D. Lieberman
#4. We are defined by the stories we tell ourselves.
Tony Robbins
#5. We live the stories we tell; the stories we don't tell live us.
Mark Doty
#6. We must risk the journey to a higher ground where there
is freedom from the gravitational pull of our stories,
the pull that comes from years of trying to prove that
the stories we tell ourselves, the ones we've made up,
are the truth.
Debbie Ford
#7. History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past. How we tell these stories - triumphantly or self-critically, metaphysically or dialectally - has a lot to do with whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings.
Grace Lee Boggs
#8. Keep your Eyes on All that's Good and Beautiful and Possible in the World. Because "The Stories We Tell Create the People We Become.
Jacqueline Lewis
#9. Our lives follow the stories we tell ourselves.
Gina Greenlee
#11. I find that unless we are very, very careful there can be a difference between who we are and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. I
Daniel Abraham
#12. African narratives in the West, they proliferate. I really don't care anymore. I'm more interested in the stories we tell about ourselves - how, as a writer, I find that African writers have always been the curators of our humanity on this continent.
Chris Abani
#13. How impossible it is to forget the stories we tell ourselves, even when the truth should super-cede them.
Stephanie Danler
#14. it's the stories we tell ourselves that cause all the problems. If you look reality straight in the eye, you end up a lot less confused.
Nell Zink
#15. The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.
Rebecca Solnit
#16. What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.
Rabih Alameddine
#17. That's the rub about 'Community' - for all the high-concept cleverness, it really comes down to vulgar humanism, the dumbest kind of sentimental identification. We watch it because we like these people and we miss them when they don't show up. They become part of the stories we tell ourselves.
Rob Sheffield
#18. We think we have some kind of privileged access to our own motives and intentions. In fact we have no clear insight into what moves us to live as we do. The stories we tell ourselves are like the messages that appear on Ouija boards. If we are authors of our lives, it is only in retrospect.
John N. Gray
#20. Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?
Scott Turow
#21. In this universe, and this existence, where we live with this duality of whether we exist or not and who are we, the stories we tell ourselves are the stories that define the potentialities of our existence. We are the stories we tell ourselves.
Shekhar Kapur
#23. Because the new the stories we tell, the art we make, the rockets we build, will influence the future that shapes our present.
Natasha Tsakos
#24. We are the stories we tell about ourselves. But when those stories are lies, we are the most surprised of all.
Brent Weeks
#25. Stories, we all have stories. Nature does not tell stories, we do. We find ourselves in them, make ourselves in them, choose ourselves in them. If we are the stories we tell ourselves, we had better choose them well.
James Orbinski
#26. And fairy tales are make-believe. They are the stories we tell to small children to make them believe the world is a far better place than it really is.
J.L. Vallance
#27. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves determine the quality of the selves we imagine we are. The stories we tell about others determine the quality of our relationships with them.
Rami M. Shapiro
#28. Symbols give us our identity, our self image, our way of explaining ourselves to ourselves and to others. Symbols in turn determine the kinds of stories we tell, and the stories we tell determine the kind of history we make and remake.
Mary Robinson
#29. The world we build tomorrow is born in the stories we tell our children today. Politics moves the pieces. Education changes the game.
Jonathan Sacks
#30. Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.
Sharon Salzberg
#31. Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves obscure our truths.
Ken Liu
#32. Imagination only fails us in the end, when the stories we tell ourselves have to stop.
Joy Williams
#33. History is the stories we tell about the past.
Thomas King
#34. Five hundred and fifty generations have lived here. Only the stories we tell each other will create us as a true Canadian people.
Rudy Wiebe
#35. The stories we tell about each other matter very much. The stories we tell ourselves about our own lives matter. And most of all, I think the way that we participate in each other's stories is of deep importance.
Jessica Jackley
#36. In calling someone a bad guy, I reassure myself that I'm good. I elevate myself. I call it the 'Star Wars morality'. And unfortunately, it underpins most of the stories we tell.
Joshua Oppenheimer
#37. A story is a garden you carry in your pocket. The stories we tell ourselves and each other are for pleasure and refuge. Like gardens they are small places in a large world. But, Jinhua, we must never mistake the stories we tell for truth.
Alexandra Curry
#38. Nothing matters more than the stories we tell ourselves to explain the world.
Mike Carey
#39. Not only does art imitate life but life imitates art. Perhaps we not only learn about life from stories, perhaps we make our lives through the stories we tell ourselves about the things that happen to us.
Ramona Koval
#40. Human beings are what I think of as "biomythic" animals: we're controlled largely by the stories we tell. When we get the story wrong, we get out of harmony with the rest of the natural order.
Sam Keen
#41. Patti Callahan Henry seamlessly combines mystery, family love, and personal journey all in one engrossing tale. From the intriguing beginning to the touching ending, The Stories We Tell is filled with the warmth, heart and compassion that have become the trademark of her novels.
Diane Chamberlain
#42. I like to write about people who are real and likeable. I like to write about people who tell their stories in that close and intimate voice we use with best friends. I love the closeness and honesty and vulnerability that come from characters who can talk that way.
Katherine Center
#43. The things of Catholic life are never boring because we have such a rich tradition and so many stories to tell.
Donald Wuerl
#44. We are gathered here at the end of what Bradbury called the October Country: a state of mind as much as it is a time. All the harvests are in, the frost is on the ground, there's mist in the crisp night air and it's time to tell ghost stories.
Neil Gaiman
#45. I wish I could anticipate some of the stories and lies that will be told. It's going to be great to get everyone together so we can tell all of the families, all of the wives and children, just how good we were because they never got to see us play.
Larry Conley
#46. Only the victors have stories to tell. We, the vanquished, were all cowards and weaklings by then, whose memories, fears, and enthusiasms should not be remembered.
Guy Sajer
#47. The problem is, we're all using social networks as distribution instead of native platforms to actually tell stories.
Gary Vaynerchuk
#48. The best of fiction, as we know, of course, doesn't tell the truth; it tales the truth.
Criss Jami
#49. Why we started the agency to begin with is to tell stories, and the tools that we're using are constantly changing. Every tool will be right for a different sort of situation, but in the end, it's going to be about your view, your voice, and how you put that all together.
Ron Haviv
#50. Our best moral stories don't tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed to extrapolate the moral meaning from the story. We're not supposed to have it handed to us.
Jonathan D. Fitzgerald
#51. Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.
Kristin Hannah
#52. My family, they're story tellers. My mom is Irish, and my dad is Italian. In my family, we weren't allowed to watch TV while we ate - we had to sit around the table and tell stories about our day.
Meg Cabot
#53. In telling our stories, we have to give up part of our imagination, because if I ever told my daughter about this night, I would have to choose the details to tell it, limit the possibilities.
Daniel Chacon
#54. Whenever I work on a film, I have three rules. Only three and I tell them to every screenwriter. I say let's retain the spirit and the intent of the overall story. Let's make it the best film that we possibly can.
Nicholas Sparks
#55. 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
#56. Tell me, why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognise our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
#57. The lies we live will always be confessed in the stories that we tell.
Orson Scott Card
#58. But I could I tell her so in a way that would suggest the distinctive nature of my attraction? Words like "love" or "devotion" or "infatuation" we're exhausted by the weight of successive love stories, but the layers imposed on them through the uses of others.
Alain De Botton
#59. We need language. We need language to tell stories. We need stories to create a self. We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains. The self we create is a fiction.
Mohsin Hamid
#60. My style is colloquial storytelling. It's the way we tell stories to one another - it's not writerly, it's not overdone.
James Patterson
#61. Real life is never so neat as the stories we choose to tell about it
Ken Dornstein
#62. If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
Madeleine L'Engle
#63. In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is my mantra.
Mira Nair
#64. The whole kiss-and-tell thing is a negative approach that often happens in a World Cup. We will see negative stories about the players and it can affect their confidence and the overall performance of the national team on the pitch, let alone the bid to actually stage the competition.
Gary Lineker
#65. If we take seriously the idea that the stories we want to hear shape the stories we can (and want to, and are allowed to) tell, then the canon emerges as something to examine very carefully.
Laura Mullen
#66. So we tell the same story, over and over. Just the details are different
Rohinton Mistry
#67. I'd like to think that we strive in film and theatre to tell great stories, and I believe in the power of storytelling in our culture.
Andy Serkis
#68. David could tell, by looking at her face as she read, whether or not the story contained in the book was living inside her, and she in it, and he would recall again all that she had told him about stories and tales and the power that they wield over us, and that we in turn wield over them.
John Connolly
#69. Mindfulness practice helps create space between our actual experiences and the reflexive stories we tend to tell about them.
Sharon Salzberg
#70. As long as we can tell stories about our ability to survive, the more we will hope, not self-destruct.
Christina Ricci
#71. Our memories are what make us who we are. Some are real. Some are made up. But they are the stories that tell us who we are. Without them we are nobody.
Clare Furniss
#72. All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names.
Brandon Sanderson
#73. No, the thing is, we all love storytelling, and as a writer you get to tell stories all the time.
Joyce Carol Oates
#74. If we have people with the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
#75. When we tell our own story, we teach the values that our choices reveal, not as abstract principals, but as our lived experience. We reveal the kind of person we are to the extent that we let others identify with us.
Marshall Ganz
#76. I'm going to tell stories to the world. I think there's time for me to grow. We'll see.
Sasha Alexander
#77. We'll never make Firefly again, because that was a thing that existed and is now gone. And Serenity isn't Firefly, and whatever comes next won't be, either. But I would love to tell more stories of this universe and to hang out with these people on and off for the rest of my career.
Joss Whedon
#78. I get verbal diarrhea in the writers' room. I just tell everyone a million anecdotes and stories and craziness, and we all double up on the floor laughing.
Jill Kargman
#79. Well, well, perhaps I am a bit of a talker. A popular fellow such as I am
my friends get round me
we chaff, we sparkle, we tell witty stories
and somehow my tongue gets wagging. I have the gift of conversation. I've been told I ought to have a salon, whatever that may be.
Kenneth Grahame
#80. We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.
Niall Williams
#81. I'm quite interested in the absolute roots of narrative, why we tell stories at all: where the monsters come from.
Anne Enright
#82. We tell stories with maps about global warming, biodiversity; we can design more livable cities, track the spread of epidemics. That makes a difference.
Jack Dangermond
#83. Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.
Laurie Anderson
#84. The stories we can tell are those that happen to us; we meet, work, live, laugh, love, demonstrate, strive in community.
Mimi Kennedy
#85. We've got so many stories to tell, you know, we could take on the world.
Yahoo Serious
#86. We are the only ones who can tell our stories because we are the only ones who have lived them.
Susan Wittig Albert
#87. Lydia shrugged. "At least we'll have some stories to tell after graduation."
"These aren't the kind of stories I want to tell.
C.K. Walker
#88. We tell ourselves there are reasons for the things that happen, but we are just telling ourselves stories. We make them up. They don't mean anything
Nicola Yoon
#89. Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.
Madeleine L'Engle
#90. History belongs to she who holds the pen ... If we don't tell our stories, they won't be told.
Julianne Malveaux
#91. You should do what you enjoy doing, what brings you passion. As kids, we spontaneously sing and dance and tell stories, and along the way, someone comes and says, 'No. You shouldn't be doing that.' And we slowly begin to unlearn our passions. I think you have to hold on to those things.
J. Michael Straczynski
#92. We tell stories. We talk about statistics. And in 1978, we added an element of the show that gave it its heartbeat: the long distance dedication.
Casey Kasem
#94. When we approached the Man of Action guys, we said, "We're not really interested in what's come before, except in the way that we want to make sure that it feels like it's Marvel's Avengers Assemble. From that point on, this is your cast. Go to it and tell great stories."
Jeph Loeb
#95. We need to take time to connect with the poor, resist our unceasing cravings, and pray. But we also need to gather with friends and family, share in God's good provision, eat delicious food, tell stories that encourage us all, and celebrate the risen Lord.
Chris Seay
#96. I'm a slave to the beats of the story, not to the words we use to tell the story.
Steve Dildarian
#97. I like storytelling. We all have an active thing that we do that gives us self-esteem, that makes us proud; it's necessary. I have to tell stories because that's the way the wiring went in.
Paul Zindel
#98. In the South, we tell stories. We tell stories if you're in a sales position, if you're in a retail position, you lure your customer by telling a story. You just do.
Tate Taylor
#99. Stories are the untested, uninvestigated theories that tell us what all these things mean. We don't even realize that they're just theories.
Byron Katie
#100. We all spin stories. That's what we do. We want people to see certain things about us and not others. What matters is whether you let others in to the truest story, the one that's the hardest to tell.
Maya Lang
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