Quotations about Storytelling and Stories
"What else are mothers for, darling?" ~Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside, 1939
The child began reading favorite stories of magic to the river, believing the tales would be carried to someone in need. ~Dr. SunWolf, @wordwhispers, tweet, 2014, professorsunwolf.com
I think we don't learn early enough in life the true value of things. Even words, it seems to me, should have value. One ought not to squander them. Talk for talk's sake never meant anything to me. That is probably why I became a good listener, although I must have learned something of it from my Indian friends. Indians never talk. They know how futile argument is. The story-teller is listened to, respectfully and silently, because he is expert testimony. ~George A. Dorsey, Young Low, 1917
For the story — from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace — is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. ~Ursula K. Le Guin, 1970
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who told it added something new,
And all who hear'd it made enlargements too,
In ev'ry ear it spread, on ev'ry tongue it grew.
~Alexander Pope
...so I might as well stop right here in the beginning and start my story — if I have one. Which truly I have not in the right and exciting sense. The things to be hereafter told, even if boiled down to a paragraph, would never be judged readable enough to be given space in the columns of a county newspaper. But, you see, it's my story, and that makes me want to tell it. ~Marion Hill, The Toll of the Road, 1918
A winter twilight deepens into night.
The firelight glows and at my feet a little maid
Doth sit. As when the heavens display the northern light,
Shine her expectant eyes and, when her hands are laid
In mine, full well I know she waits a tale to hear;
The end perchance a sunny smile, perchance a tear...
~Harry Potter, "The Knight of the Pierced Heart," In Thy Heart's Garden, 1917
Faith! he must make his stories shorter,
Or change his comrades once a quarter...
~Jonathan Swift, 1731
One of the choice bits of fathering is telling fairy tales in the heel of the evening when the tireless legs have begun to drag a little and the running tongue pauses a bit in its outpouring. Here is fun and sly gleaning of lore and guide posts to pleasant roads and a hint of fine taste. A good story cries out to be told and the art of listening needs to be cultivated as much as the greatly desired gift of telling. ~Angelo Patri, 1924
[S]tories are not just stories but also survival tools. ~Robin R. Bates, How Beowulf Can Save America: An Epic Hero's Guide to Defeating the Politics of Rage, 2012, betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com
FREDDY: Tell me a story, grandma.
GRANDMA: What kind, dearie?
FREDDY: One that I have to eat cookies to listen to.
~Life, 1922
Reason #7 for reading folktales: They remind us that sometimes the blessings and the curses get all mixed up. ~Dr. SunWolf, @WordWhispers, tweet, 2019, professorsunwolf.com
'Tis the same old story all through; devils and demigods, radshas and rishies, Noah's ark and Excalibur. That sort of thing might go on for ever. ~Flora Annie Webster Steel (1847–1929), "Râmchunderji"
As to the other tales contained in this work, and, indeed, to my tales generally, I can make but one observation. I am an old traveller. I have read somewhat, heard and seen more, and dreamt more than all. My brain is filled, therefore, with all kinds of odds and ends. In travelling, these heterogeneous matters have become shaken up in my mind, as the articles are apt to be in an ill-packed travelling-trunk; so that when I attempt to draw forth a fact, I cannot determine whether I have read, heard, or dreamt it; and I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories. ~Geoffrey Crayon (Washington Irving), "To the Reader," Tales of a Traveller, 1836
"A Fable," said the merry Æsop, with a twinkle in his witty eyes, "is a fictitious story about nothing that ever happened, related by nobody that ever lived. And the moral is, that every one is quite innocent, only they must not do it again!" ~S.J. Adair Fitz-Gerald (1859–1925), The Zankiwank & The Bletherwitch, 1896
"Always remember," the storyteller told the wide-eyed children, "once-upon-a-time in a tale also means Now." ~Dr. SunWolf, @wordwhispers, tweet, 2012, professorsunwolf.com
These were, in general, ancient inhabitants of that region; born, and bred there from boyhood; who had long since become wheezy and asthmatical, and short of breath, except in the article of story-telling; in which respect they were still marvellously long-winded. ~Charles Dickens
You might enter this story by the stage door. ~Munson Havens, Old Valentines: A Love Story, 1914
Wine is a magician, for it loosens the tongue and liberates good stories. ~A Book of Old Songs, Healths, Toasts, Sentiments and Wise Sayings Pertaining to the bond of Good Fellowship, 1901
Writing a story allows us to play with our imaginary friends when we are adults. ~Dr. SunWolf, @wordwhispers, tweet, 2015, professorsunwolf.com
Bedtime stories are a doorway to dreams. ~Terri Guillemets
All stories end in death, and he is no true storyteller who would keep that from you. ~Ernest Hemingway, as quoted in A. E. Hotchner, The Good Life According To Hemingway, 2008
...I can set down a story... ~William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXXVIII
Fully understanding spoils the story — the best are always translucent. ~Terri Guillemets
This story is ended and the typewriter closed. ~Jane Hillyer, Reluctantly Told, 1926