QuoteProject
We are trying to communicate that which lies in our deepest heart, which has no words, which can only be hinted at through the means of a story. And somehow, miraculously, a story that comes from deep in my heart calls from a reader that which is deepest in his or her heart, and together from our secret hidden selves we create a story that neither of us could have told alone.
Katherine Paterson
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote highlights how storytelling expresses deep emotions and connects people.

Katherine Paterson emphasizes the profound nature of storytelling, illustrating how narratives can convey feelings that are often inexpressible with words alone. By sharing stories rooted in personal experiences, both the storyteller and the reader engage in a unique collaboration, uncovering truths from their innermost selves that result in a shared understanding and connection that transcends individual expression.

Themes

StorytellingConnectionEmotionHeartCollaboration

In practice

Example use cases

In a writing workshop, when discussing the importance of personal narratives.

More from Katherine Paterson

If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird.
Katherine PatersonRead
It's such a thrill when an adult comes up to me and says, 'I read your book as a child and really loved it.' That's a tremendous compliment.
Katherine PatersonRead
She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there--like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone.
Katherine PatersonRead
Children have to have access to books, and a lot of children can't go to a store and buy a book. We need not only our public libraries to be funded properly and staffed properly, but our school libraries. Many children can't get to a public library, and the only library they have is a school library.
Katherine PatersonRead
The challenge for those of us who care about our faith and about a hurting world is to tell stories which will carry the words of grace and hope in their bones and sinews and not wear them like fancy dress.
Katherine PatersonRead
The best thing about being a writer is it gives you readers who understand your deepest feelings and fears.
Katherine PatersonRead

Similar quotes

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying.
Johnny DeppRead
Art is a habit-forming drug. Art has absolutely no existence as veracity, as truth. People always speak of it with this great, religious reverence, but why should it be so revered?
Marcel DuchampRead
More than anything else, though, to anyone who would write about it, golf offers a four-hour drama in two acts, which becomes memorable even in the tape-recorded reminiscenses of old champs, and which - in the hands of someone like Herb Wind - can become a piece of war correspondence as artfully controlled as Alan Morehead's account of Gallipoli.
Alistair CookeRead
The thing to remember when you're writing," he said, " is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader. I don't care what literary device you might use, or belief systems you tap into--if you can make a story true for the reader, if you can give them a glimpse into another way of seeing the world, or another way that they can cope with their problems, then that story is a succes.
Charles De LintRead
When you want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.
Anton ChekhovRead
Good novels are produced by people who voluntarily isolate themselves and go deep, and report from the depths on what they find.
Jonathan FranzenRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.