#stories

"Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger."

"Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written."

"Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke."

"Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you."

"The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the end of our story-book."(Introductory lecture as professor of Latin at University College, London, 3 October 1892)"

"That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth."

"When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own."

"God is going to send you someone that will rescue you. Then one day you will rescue them in return and together your story will rescue others. He has always been a God of rescues and a maker of warrior’s for his grace. You only need to believe that you are part of something greater than you know."

"All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing: it's our goddamned story!"

"It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story."

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

"What doesn't kill us makes us funnier."

"Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit."

"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?The world would split open."

"We owe it to each other to tell stories."

"Small wonder that spell means both a story told, and a formula of power over living men. -On Fairy Stories"

"When male authors write love stories, the heroine tends to end up dead."

"All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, like little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, 'Sir, write me, I am beautiful."

"Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not."

"The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story."