Inspirational story quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
Famous Story Quotes
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. Patrick Rothfuss
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou
Storytelling is our obligation to the next generation. If all we are doing is marketing, we are doing a disservice, and not only to our profession, but to our children, and their children. Give something of meaning to your audience by inspiring, engaging, and educating them with story. Stop marketing. Start storytelling. Laura Holloway
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. Gilda Radner
The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Brandon Sanderson
Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. J. D. Salinger
Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here. Sue Monk Kidd
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one. Terry Pratchett
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion
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. Patrick Rothfuss
A story has no beginning or end arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. Graham Greene
After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. Philip Pullman
Inside each of us is a natural born storyteller, waiting to be released. Robin Moore
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. Virginia Woolf
Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal. Dr. Howard Gardner
It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. Haruki Murakami
And do you know what is the most often missing ingredient in a sales message? It’s the sales message that doesn’t tell an interesting story. Storytelling good storytelling is a vital component of a marketing campaign. Gary Halbert
Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger. Ben Okri
Narrative imagining story is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, or predicting, of planning, and of explaining. Mark Turner
We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling. Jimmy Neil Smith
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. Neil Gaiman
The way we experience story will evolve, but as storytelling animals, we will no more give it up than start walking on all fours. Jonathan Gottschall
That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth. Tim O’Brien
You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it. Margaret Atwood
But there’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begin. Mitch Albom
Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world. Robert McKee
Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories. Hilary Mantel
Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell. Seth Godin
There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place. J.K. Rowling
The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind artists, inventors, storytellers creative and holistic right brain thinkers. Daniel Pink
We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories. Margaret Atwood
Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses. Aleks Krotoski
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. John Berger
Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too. Howard Gardner
Perhaps some day I’ll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow. Sylvia Plath
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic slice of truth, wisdom, is dying out. Walter Benjamin
There are books full of great writing that don’t have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story don’t be like the book snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the words the language. Don’t be like the play it safers who won’t do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book. Stephen King
There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place. J.K. Rowling
We’re all stories, in the end. Steven Moffat
Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form. Jean Luc Godard
Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they’re amiable and sometimes not. China Miéville
Purposeful storytelling isn’t show business, it’s good business. Peter Guber
Listen, and you will realize that we are made not from cells or from atoms. We are made from stories. Mia Couto
Stories are our primary tools of learning and teaching, the repositories of our lore and legends. They bring order into our confusing world. Think about how many times a day you use stories to pass along data, insights, memories or common sense advice. Edward Miller
At its very core, marketing is storytelling. The best advertising campaigns take us on an emotional journey appealing to our wants, needs and desires while at the same time telling us about a product or service. Melinda Partin
You’re both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You’re the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You’re the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody’s something, but you are also your you. John Green
You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built in the human plan. We come with it. Margaret Atwood
A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart. Chuck Palahniuk
I’ll tell you a secret. Old storytellers never die. They disappear into their own story. Vera Nazarian
Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke. Joss Whedon
We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories. Jonathan Gottschall
I was burning through books every day stories about people and places I’d never heard of. They were perhaps the only thing that kept me from teetering into utter despair. Sarah J. Maas
Stories create community, enable us to see through the eyes of other people, and open us to the claims of others. Peter Forbes
Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on. China Miéville
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. Hannah Arendt
Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you. Shannon Alder
The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions. Michael Margolis
I think you’re a fairy tale. I think you’re magical, and brave, and exquisite. And I hope you’ll let me be in your story. Laini Taylor
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou
I mean, most people want to escape. Get out of their heads. Out of their lives. Stories are the easiest way to do that. Victoria Schwab
This is our story to tell. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the story telling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. Jandy Nelson
Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light. Kate DiCamillo
I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us. Chris Cleave
I wore your promise on my finger for one year I’ll wear your name on my heart til I die Because you were my boy, you were my only boy forever. Coco J. Ginger
Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole. Eudora Welty
My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind. Tahir Shah
Tell the story that’s been growing in your heart, the characters you can’t keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning. Jennifer Weiner
We’re all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on. Not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It’s a kind of immortality, I suppose, bounded by limits, it’s true, but then so’s everything. Charles de Lint
Authors do not choose a story to write, the story chooses us. Richard P. Denney
That’s how stories happen with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. Haruki Murakami
Once upon a time there was what there was, and if nothing had happened there would be nothing to tell. Charles de Lint
A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth. Diane Setterfield
