A few quotes on storytelling

Frankie Bacon, earlier this spring when the daffodils were out. There is no real reason for this or the other pictures in this post. I just thought you might like them. 

Ah, the old ploy: when you can't think of what to write, borrow from somebody else. Here are a few good storytelling quotes. I'll add more next time I'm flailing around for blog topics.

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.--Muriel Rukeyser.

I can only answer the question "What am I to do?" if I can answer the question "Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?"--Alasdair MacIntyre

All sorrows can be born if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.--Isak Dinesen

The healing touch of storytelling reaches deeply into the listener's heart as well, indelibly imprinting there the mark of the story and its message, weaving the listener into the dance of community.--Richard Stone

Because there is a natural storytelling urge and ability in all human beings, even just a little nurturing of this impulse can bring about astonishing and delightful results.--Nancy Mellon

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.--Robert McKee.

And one of my all-time favorites:

The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for each other.--Barry Lopez in Crow and Weasel.

Frankie with gargoyle, in contemplation. 

Francis Bacon has made a nest in the coreopsis. Silly cat!

Quotations on listening and storytelling

Here are a few good quotations I've gathered over the years:

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. Hannah Arendt

If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel

To speak is to sow, to listen is to reap. Turkish proverb

All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence, in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song—but in this dance or in this song there are fulfulled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in our common destiny. Pablo Neruda

[T]he sound of story is the dominant sound of our life. Reynolds Price

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Karl Menninger

When the heart overflows, it comes out through the mouth. Ethiopian proverb

With me, it's story, story, story. Bernard Malamud

A good metaphor is something even the police should keep their eye on. Georg C. Lichtenberg