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Storytelling Quotes by Famous Authors

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1. “To tell about a drunken muzhik’s beating his wife is incomparably harder than to compose a whole tract about the ‘woman question.’”

Ivan Turgenev

Truth, Abuse, Society, Reality, Storytelling

2. “The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.”

Charles Lamb

Storytelling, Humor, Truth, Exaggeration, Entertainment

3. “I find that the most difficult thing in prose narrative is linking one thing with the other. The link might just be a sentence, or even a word. It sums up what has gone before and prepares one for what is to come.”

V.S. Naipaul

Writing, Narrative, Literature, Structure, Storytelling

4. “The first 50 years of the cinema were absolutely great years. Original minds were at work establishing the ways to tell a story. And what is happening now is a copying, a pastiche-ing of what was done by great men.”

V.S. Naipaul

Cinema, Creativity, Originality, Art, Storytelling

5. “There are writers who are great visionaries, who can depict huge movements - things like that. They're the great writers. I'm just the other kind.”

Leonard Cohen

Writing, Vision, Storytelling, Perspective, Humility

6. “I listen to the radio and I like all kinds of music, you know, but I like to hear from people who have been there. Hank Williams has been there.”

Leonard Cohen

Music, Experience, Authenticity, Storytelling, Legacy

7. “If in the first act you introduce a gun, by the third act you have to use it.”

Anton Chekhov

Foreshadowing, Drama, Writing, Consequence, Storytelling

8. “I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.”

Anton Chekhov

Imagination, Writing, Creativity, Storytelling, Mind

9. “My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.”

Anton Chekhov

Writing, Storytelling, Revision, Truth, Fiction

10. “Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.”

Anton Chekhov

Writing, Storytelling, Character, Expression, Clarity

11. “Sometimes we go to a play and after the curtain has been up five minutes we have a sense of being able to settle back in the arms of the playwright. Instinctively we know that the playwright knows his business.”

Anton Chekhov

Theater, Writing, Confidence, Storytelling, Mastery

12. “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”

Anton Chekhov

Foreshadowing, Storytelling, Drama, Consequences, Symbolism

13. “If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.”

Anton Chekhov

Foreshadowing, Storytelling, Consequences, Drama, Symbolism

14. “If there’s a gun on the wall in Act One, Scene One, you must fire the gun by Act Three, Scene Two. If you fire a gun in Act Three, Scene Two, you must see the gun on the wall in Act One, Scene One.”

Anton Chekhov

Foreshadowing, Inevitability, Storytelling, Drama, Consequences

15. “I still lack a political, religious and philosophical world view – I change it every month – and so I’ll have to limit myself to descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak.”

Anton Chekhov

Uncertainty, Storytelling, Perspective, Philosophy, Change

16. “Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.”

Anton Chekhov

Literature, Drama, Storytelling, Contrast, Metaphor

17. “In one-act pieces there should be only rubbish that is their strength.”

Anton Chekhov

Writing, Drama, Simplicity, Creativity, Storytelling

18. “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”

Anton Chekhov

Foreshadowing, Integrity, Drama, Storytelling, Commitment

19. “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

Anton Chekhov

Foreshadowing, Storytelling, Writing, Drama, Symbolism

20. “Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act.”

Anton Chekhov

Theater, Foreshadowing, Drama, Storytelling, Principle

21. “The traditional novel form continues to enlarge our experience in those very areas where the wide-angle lens and the Cinema screen tend to narrow it.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Novel, Experience, Cinema, Perspective, Storytelling

22. “I cannot provide the reality of events, I can only convey their shadow.”

Stendhal

Reality, Perception, Truth, Illusion, Storytelling

23. “If to some my tale seems foolishness I am content that such could count me fool.”

Sophocles

Foolishness, Perception, Wisdom, Acceptance, Storytelling

24. “My parents were both storytellers. They always spoke with metaphorical richness.”

Alice Walker

Storytelling, Heritage, Expression, Creativity, Tradition

25. “No song or poem will bear my mother’s name. Yet so many of the stories that I write, that we all write, are my mother’s stories.”

Alice Walker

Motherhood, Writing, Legacy, Storytelling, Influence

26. “Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!”

Geoffrey Chaucer

Writing, Literature, Tragedy, Creation, Storytelling

27. “Without oblivion, there is no remembrance possible. When both oblivion and memory are wise, when the general soul of man is clear, melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad as memorial of the Past.”

Thomas Carlyle

Memory, Oblivion, History, Wisdom, Storytelling

28. “It is part of my creed that the only poetry is history, could we tell it right.”

Thomas Carlyle

Poetry, History, Truth, Perspective, Storytelling

29. “Minimalism seems closest to the sophisticated storytelling of movies. Movies have really educated contemporary audiences to be the most intelligent, sophisticated audiences in history. We don't any longer need to have the relationship between one scene and the next explained. We will figure it out ourselves.”

Chuck Palahniuk

Minimalism, Storytelling, Movies, Intelligence, Creativity

30. “Fiction is no longer the dominant storytelling device of our time. In the 19th century it worked great, and fiction was the king, but it's not the king anymore.”

Chuck Palahniuk

Fiction, Storytelling, Change, Media, Evolution

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