Quotes about stories

I had said before that all stories were magic. It had never occurred to me that all magic was stories.

“It’s a debate,” he spat, “over truth. Which truth is more true? The inspiring myth or the bleak, blood-caked reality?”

"Words are seeds, Casiopea. With words you embroider narratives, and the narratives breed myths, and there's power in the myth. Yes, the things you name have power."

Telling a story is like sowing a seed—you always hope to see it become a beautiful tree, with firm roots and branches that soar up in the sky. But it is a peculiar sowing, for you will never know whether your seed sprouts or dies. (p122)

Nothing new has ever happened to a son of Adam, she said. Everything has already been lived and everything has already been told. If only we listened to the stories. (p52)

We always know how the story ends. What we don't know is what happens along the way.

The difference between mad people and sane people...is that sane people have variety when they talk-story. Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over. (p159, "At the Western Palace")

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”

The essence of Medicine is story-- finding the right story, understanding the true story, being unsatisfied with a story that does not make sense. Healthcare, on the other hand, deconstructs story into thousands of tiny pieces-- pages of boxes and check marks for which no one is responsible.

The assumption that whatever we now believe is just common sense, or what we always knew, is a way to save face. It's also a way to forget the power of a story and of a storyteller, the power in the margins, and the potential for change.

Stories have always hunted me down, jumped out at me from the shadows, stalked me and sought me out, grabbed me by the shirtsleeves, and demanded my full attention. I’ve led a life chock-full of stories, and I know now that you have to be shifty and vigilant and ready to receive their incoming fire.

"Are stories true?"

"Which ones?"

"The mermaid mother and Hansel and Gretel and all them."

"Well," says Ma, "not literally."

"What's—"

"They're magic, they're not about real people walking around today."

"So they're fake?"

"No, no. Stories are a different kind of true."