Explore Quotes on Stories

Heart of America is a movie I'm very proud of. The young actors are great and the story has impact.

You come up with a story line, you hire the writer, the director, the stars, the set designer.

No one who reads this book will remain unchanged or unaffected-Julene Bair's story arcs from the cornfields of Kansas and Nebraska to the food on our tables and the gas in our cars. There is always a price to be paid, she reminds us, for the pleasures and comforts of this day. If you read only one memoir this year, this is the one to read and pass along.

I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community. I hope that my being real with you will help empower you to step into who you are and encourage you to share yourself with those around you.

A story is built on characters and reasons.

We are each in the middle of our own path. We do not know what will be at the end of our story.

I'm tempted to say, 'Writing treatments is like designing a film by hiring six million monkeys to tear out pages of an encyclopedia, then you put the pages through a paper-shredder, randomly grab whatever intact lines are left, sing them in Italian to a Spanish deaf-mute, and then make story decisions with the guy via conference call.' But no... compared to writing treatments, that makes sense, too.

My father is an actor, and I used to go on set to visit him. I saw the stories he was telling and said: 'That's what I want to do.' I was always in awe whenever I went to the movies or when I watched television.

For me, I think there's a lot more room in cable television to tell broader stories. NBC and the networks, they're all very mainstream, and they're a little more conservative in how they approach storytelling.

I think if you're artistic in any way, you're probably born with it. I guess it's a talent that can be learned here and there, but I think the instinct to tell a story or to create something happens maybe in the womb.

Great brands are like great stories. And every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And our job is to make sure that every chapter of our stories makes sense to the one in front of it and make sense to the one after it. There is no such thing as an overnight success. You have to get up and put your work boots on every single day.

Sometimes I think we keep secrets for the wrong reasons. If we could instead find that right person to talk to we might find that talking about an embarrassing story or admitting our frailty might lead to a more authentic relationship with others or ourselves.

I don't want a team that escapes from reality and escapes from the truth. I don't want people who are always escaping, who always have a story and are always conniving. An ostrich tries to escape from the truth. Isn't an ostrich the thing that puts its head in the sand? But guess what's sticking out when he does it? It's ass, that's what. I don't want a team like that......Because when you have a team like that and trouble comes, that team will not face the trouble.

So usually even if you like a sentence or a story or something, it won't come out that way - it'll come out years later, and in a different way, and you don't really control that.

I am, to be quite honest, sick of hero stories.

My success is not measured in money. I have no financial security, I have no savings account. I measure my success by asking myself if I’m telling a story that the world needs to hear, if I am educating people.

Unacceptable Levels is Powerful. It tells the story of toxic chemicals in just about every aspect of our lives, and the egregious lack of regulation. Our ability to protect our families is at stake.

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

There are people who can walk away from you... let them walk. I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you... Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. And it doesn't mean that they are a bad person, it just means that their part in the story is over. And you've got to know when people's part in your story is over.

The idea that the story is true is more important than being able to prove that it's true.

Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty.