Narrative Quotes - Page 27

• The kind of theater that I do is sort of ‘narrative realism,’ which I think in the broadest sense is legitimate to say is mainstream. I mean, in a certain sense, Suzan-Lori's plays have had mainstream levels of success. But Suzan-Lori is in some ways not a narrative realist.

  Tony Kushner

  Mean, Thinking, Play

  "Tony Kushner: The full interview". Interview with John Moore, blogs.denverpost.com. January 31, 2010.

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• A lot of the drive to make narratives came from having to play by myself as a 5- or 6-year-old in the woods.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Years, Play, Woods

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• The young today cannot follow narrative but they are alert to drama. They cannot bear description but they love landscape and action.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Drama, Landscape, Today

  Marshall McLuhan, Matie Molinaro, Corinne McLuhan, William Toye (1987). “Letters of Marshall McLuhan”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• If you agree with me that a poem can be as bountiful as a rich Victorian narrative, and as wise... then you'll want to join me here in the Wow, I Like No Need of Sympathy Club. Your membership fee is the same as your membership privileges: this book.

  Albert Goldbarth

  Wise, Book, Needs

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• This tough-love, winner-take-all narrative dominating policymaking is far too limited a way to think about how a complex, modern, diverse economy like ours expands and thrives. The strongest periods of economic growth in the 20th century were also times when incomes rose across the board.

  John Podesta

  Thinking, Rose, Political

  "Income Inequality’s Ripple Effect". www.politico.com. December 09, 2013.

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• I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Fiction, Distinction, Propositions

  E.L. Doctorow (2011). “Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution:: Selected Essays, 1977-1992”, p.160, Random House

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• In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Writing, Trying, Might

  "Reliving the fall of Sparta". Interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez, www.nationalreview.com. December 22, 2011.

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• A lot of my early career, I wrote story songs that had narratives, that had plots.

  Rupert Holmes

  Song, Careers, Plot

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• I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Book, Writing

  Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.183, Canongate Books

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• Redheaded Peckerwood, which unerringly walks the fine line between fiction and nonfiction, is a disturbingly beautiful narrative about unfathomable violence and its place on the land

  Luc Sante

  Beautiful, Land, Nonfiction

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• The language of chemistry simply does not mesh with that of biology. Chemistry is about substances and how they react, whereas biology appeals to concepts such as information and organisation. Informational narratives permeate biology.

  Paul Davies

  Doe, Substance, Information

  "The secret of life won't be cooked up in a chemistry lab" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. January 13, 2013.

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• Most people who seek attention and regard by announcing that they're writing a novel are actually so devoid of narrative talent that they can't hold the attention of a dinner table for thirty seconds, even with a dirty joke.

  Paul Fussell

  Dirty, Writing, People

  Paul Fussell (1991). “Bad Or, the Dumbing of America”, Pocket Books

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• With fiction, you can talk about plot, character and narrative, whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with.

  Terry Eagleton

  Home, Character, Plot

  "A puritan at play" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. March 15, 2008.

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• An action movie should, like any other, follow the narrative traditions of literature. That means there should be subtlety, a slow build and a gradual bringing together of all the separate threads of the plot. To see all of it coming together slowly is very rewarding for the audience.

  Shane Black

  Mean, Together, Plot

  "Crash, bang, wallop what a picture" by Sam Delaney, www.theguardian.com. May 21, 2009.

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• I had never thought that I would be involved in narrative structures. As a young guy, I was more interested in abstract modeling. But as I got older, I began to see that there was no reason to limit myself to any intellectual or conceptual postulate, when in fact I'm a professional student of music.

  Anthony Braxton

  Narrative Structure, Guy, Intellectual

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• I've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Thinking, Stories, Might

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• My stories are sometimes closer to poems or meditations, but often there is at least a little narrative in them.

  Lydia Davis

  Meditation, Stories, Littles

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• I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.

  Ava DuVernay

  Admire, Ifs

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.

  Ava DuVernay

  Documentaries, Truth Will Come Out, Situation

  "Ava DuVernay, Sundance Award-Winner for ‘Middle of Nowhere,’ On Why It’s Important That Stories About Black Women Be Told By Black Women". Interview with Claire Easton, www.indiewire.com. October 10, 2012.

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• I'm quite interested in the absolute roots of narrative, why we tell stories at all: where the monsters come from.

  Anne Enright

  Roots, Monsters, Stories

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• I create fictional narratives, but it's based on literal people.

  Danai Gurira

  People, Literal

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• In every debate, whatever the format, whatever the questions, there is one and only one way to identify the winner: Who commands the room? Who drives the narrative? Who is in charge?

  Jeff Greenfield

  Way, Rooms, Debate

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• I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.

  Alan Furst

  Book, Past, Thinking

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• There's a reason the Exodus story has inspired so many Americans. It's a narrative of hope.

  Bruce Feiler

  Stories, Inspired, Reason

  "God and Dad: A Father’s Four Lessons of Faith" by Bruce Feiler, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 18, 2010.

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• The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.

  Jane Campion

  Struggle, Writing, Piano

  "New Again: Jane Campion". Interview with Katherine Dieckmann, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 30, 2012.

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