Story Quotes

There's got to be something you want to tell and that's the engine which spurs all of the work you have to do in order to create the story, but you have to love some sort of nugget of what you're telling to be a filmmaker.

I think the real target of al-Qaeda is Saudi Arabia by the way. They hate us and we're a vehicle to get at Saudi Arabia. I think Osama bin Laden really wants to topple that regime and have his people move in, but that's a whole other story.

A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.

I worked at NBC and MTV for two years, and it was very interesting to see the comparisons of audiences and the way that I would have to present a story to the two different places.

The desire to move into a bigger house, to avoid living AIDS daily, and a dream to be accepted by a community and school, became possible and a reality with a movie about my life, The Ryan White Story.

Obviously, if the commander makes certain decisions that the reporter thinks is inhibiting his right to report a legitimate story, he has to appeal to the commander's boss to get that changed.

And I have to credit David Jacobs with the opportunities he gave me. He was totally into sharing the creation of characters. David put together a show that told the story of people over many years' time and that was greatly enjoyable. Though nowadays that is frowned upon.

We're special because dreams that are impossible anywhere else, come true here. That's not just my story. That's your story. That's our story.

Back in 1992, I had my first story accepted by 'The New Yorker.'

If you do a story about a British journalist rescuing a child from Sarajevo, then Sarajevo just becomes an exotic location, and the story's about this British journalist.

In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.

Unless the story line carries the scenes, the scenes don't really mean anything.

I like working in any medium. Who's making it? How much do I like the story? Does it contribute something?

It's a complete lie, why do people buy these papers? It's not the truth I'm here to say. You know, don't judge a person, do not pass judgement, unless you have talked to them one on one. I don't care what the story is, do not judge them because it is a lie.

It's all about who's where on the food chain. When I'm the story editor, I expect my writers to follow my vision. When I'm working for another editor, I'm obliged to follow their vision.

I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories.

But at the same time, the commonplace statement about them is true: every character is the hero of his own story. Each has a justification for his actions that is convincing to him. It's fun to give these people voices.

There's fierce competition between all the networks to get the guest who can bring the most pertinent information about whatever the story of the moment happens to be.

With each of those projects I wasn't thinking about how the layout would really affect the story I was working on - it wasn't the content that was affecting the layout, it was, how I wanted to draw at that point in time.

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.

He brought imagination to the story of the Creation.

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.

I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.

In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.

But I feel that I have a responsibility to help the film and I have relations with the studio and with those who put up the money so that I can tell a story that I believe in.

There I was limited to what happened the same way I am with Riel. It doesn't feel like a great burden to have your story, to some degree, set. I am enjoying figuring out what I think is the most dramatic way of telling this set of historical facts.

Whether the story reflects the facts is obviously a different matter.

When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture.

To me, a story can be both concrete and abstract, or a concrete story can hold abstractions. And abstractions are things that really can't be said so well with words.

And almost always there has to be change, change in the characters is the journey - it's the story.