Narrative Quotes - Page 4

• The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.

  Scott Turow

  Purpose, Ambiguity, Complexity

  "'To hell with Perry Mason'". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. November 24, 2002.

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• Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.

  Edward Gibbon

  History, Naked, Firsts

  Edward Gibbon (1862). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.2

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• In the Tea Party narrative, victory at the polls means a new American revolution, one that will "take our country back" from everyone they disapprove of. But what they dont realize is, there's a catch: This is America, and we have an entrenched oligarchical system in place that insulates us all from any meaningful political change.

  Matt Taibbi

  Meaningful, Country, Party

  "The Truth About the Tea Party". www.rollingstone.com. September 28, 2010.

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• Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'

  Kate Atkinson

  Writing, People, Different

  "Emotionally weird? Moi?". Interview with Kim Bunce, www.theguardian.com. March 12, 2000.

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• The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It's the thing that people create.

  Jeff Bezos

  Book, People, Containers

  "Jeff Bezos's mission: Compelling small publishers to think big". Interview with Jp Mangalindan, fortune.com. June 29, 2010.

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• As a reader, I notice political views regardless of whether or not the book is fiction. What annoys me is when said views do nothing to advance the narrative.

  Jen Lancaster

  Book, Views, Political

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• I have loved football as an almost mythic game since I was in the fourth grade. To me, the game wasn't even grounded in reality. The uniform turned you into a warrior. Being on a team, the mythology of physical combat, the struggle against the elements, the narrative of the game.

  Steve Sabol

  Football, Team, Struggle

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

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• Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE

  Mark Twain

  Order, Plot, Moral

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "Notice" (1884)

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• I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!

  Frederick Douglass

  Eye, Dark, Night

  Frederick Douglass (2016). “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave”, p.60, Xist Publishing

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• It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of slavery. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.

  Frederick Douglass

  Long, Rose, Forever

  Frederick Douglass (2013). “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave”, p.99, Simon and Schuster

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• The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.

  John Gregory Dunne

  Umbilical Cord, Fetus, Literature

  John Gregory Dunne (2013). “Crooning”, p.198, Zola Books

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• Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.

  Anton Chekhov

  Drama, Wife, Mistress

  "Memories of Chekhov: Accounts of the Writer from His Family, Friends and Contemporaries". Book by Peter Sekirin, September 30, 2011.

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• The narrative constructs the identity of the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character.

  Paul Ricoeur

  Character, Identity, Stories

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• We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that's the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

  Paul Auster

  Reality, People, Personality

  1989 In the Sunday Times,16 Apr.

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• The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship, upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Arrows, Understanding, Together

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.860, Random House

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• Narrative identity takes part in the story's movement, in the dialectic between order and disorder

  Paul Ricoeur

  Order, Identity, Stories

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• We impose order and narrative on everything in order to understand it. Otherwise, there's nothing but chaos.

  Julianne Moore

  Order, Chaos

  "Julianne Moore Believes in Therapy, Not God (And Definitely Gun Control)" by Stephen Galloway, www.hollywoodreporter.com. January 28, 2015.

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• My purpose is to make my narrative as truthful as possible.

  George Armstrong Custer

  Truth, Purpose, Truthful

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• A narrative thread gives people permission to think about other things whilst being carried by its flow. It does not mean that one has to compromise one's vision, or question formal concerns. It's just being more subtle and clever by having one accessible thread.

  Sally Potter

  Clever, Mean, Thinking

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• No matter how stark the reality, a human being fits it into a narrative that is palatable.

  Joshua Prager

  Reality, Matter, Fit

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• Stories are different every time you tell them - they allow so many possible narratives.

  David Antin

  Different, Stories

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• Whether it's foreign money or hiding emails, these stories are creating a narrative about Hillary Clinton trying to be above everyone else and operating under her own set of rules.

  Dana Perino

  Creating, Trying, Email

  "Hillary Clinton, private email and more questions about character" by Dana Perino, www.foxnews.com. March 03, 2015.

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• You have to suspend thinking in narratives. The moment you are conscious of yourself the gap opens up. And in this gap, stories are generated.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Thinking, Gaps, Stories

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.

  E. O. Wilson

  People, Needs, Purpose

  "E.O. Wilson Is on Top of the World". Interview with Jill Neimark, www.psychologytoday.com. September 1, 1998.

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• A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens.

  John Updike

  Wall, Writing, Doors

  John Updike (2009). “More Matter: Essays and Criticism”, p.183, Random House

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