Storytelling Quotes

Surely the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It's a paradox that's at the heart of any kind of storytelling.

The most important thing is, how can I move forward towards something that I can't articulate, that is new in storytelling with moving images and sound?

Actors, we like stories, we like storytelling, we love being a part of the story, and if you give us a story that's interesting then we'll want to do it.

I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture.

I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm.

Because of all the concurrent stories going in 24 and its fast pace, it can be complicated in terms of the story, so I thought sound could help with the storytelling.

The storytelling gift is innate: one has it or one doesn't. But style is at least partly a learned thing: one refines it by looking and listening and reading and practice - by work.

I've set the bar quite high in terms of storytelling.

As long as we are engaged in storytelling that moves the culture forward, it doesn't matter what format it is.

I actually think one of my strengths is my storytelling.

I love storytelling so for me to get behind a story and get in there early in its infancy and kind of develop it in the early stages was something I really wanted to be a part of.

I definitely managed to do different kinds of things. My focus is usually who the director is, because at the end of the day the director is the storyteller, what the movie is all about. I don't want to participate in something that I don't think is constructive storytelling.

But I think we're also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They've seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There's so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.

If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.

I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority.

Through his mastery of storytelling techniques, he has managed to separate his character, in the public mind, from his actions as president. He has, in short, mesmerized us with that steady gaze.

There's a great tradition in storytelling that's thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that's really what I wanted to do.

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.

I mean, I'm in the business of storytelling, not message making.

I don't assume, because I can write screenplays, that I know how to write a novel. It's a very different world. There's a craft involved in storytelling, and it's a different kind of craft. But yes, someday I will do that. It just might be awhile.

But, number one, I think traditional noir doesn't work in contemporary storytelling because we don't live in that world anymore.

I like the storytelling and reading the letters, the long-distance dedications.

Leaping away from my mistakes has propelled me forward. It has great force behind it. It makes for great storytelling.

'St. Elmo's Fire' is one of my favorite films. I like the storytelling of those teenage American films. You don't get that now. Teenage American movies are all about sick jokes, puking a lot, arse jokes.

I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves.

Well, the medium of film is so different than a book that just by bringing it into visual storytelling is to change it up. I think in a book, in any book, you can have a reactive character. Some of the great novels of all time have had that, but in a film you can't do that.

I wanted to rock back and forth between myth and distant futures, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It felt a bit like prophecy and a bit like storytelling.

I think that instinct, that storytelling instinct, rescued me most of my life.

My major allegiance has been to storytelling, not to history.