A Good Story Quotes

As long as people believe in the written word and a good story.. They will believe in me. ~ Solange Nicole

[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion. ~ Anton Chekhov

I'm not a purist - I like films that are narrated and films that aren't, films that are beautiful and films that are clumsy but heartfelt. Mostly, I just like a good story and good characters. ~ Marshall Curry

The announcement that you are going to tell a good story (and the chuckle that precedes it) is always a dangerous opening. ~ Margot Asquith

In my opinion, visual effects are great when it compliments a good story, and action is great when it compliments a good story, but just to have them for the sake of having them, it gets a little boring, especially if you're talking a TV series. At least with a movie that's an hour and a half to two hours, you see it and you're impressed, and then you're out. With a series, if it's only that, week after week after week, there's nothing there to bring you back. You have to get invested in the characters and care about them and want to follow them. ~ Drew Roy

Why ruin a good story with the truth? ~ Woody Allen

Why do you keep reading a book? Usually to find out what happens. Why do you give up and stop reading it? There may be lots of reasons. But often the answer is you don't care what happens. So what makes the difference between caring and not caring? The author's cruelty. And the reader's sympathy ... it takes a mean author to write a good story. ~ Gail Carson Levine

I sketched out a rough story for them and the director said, well it's a good story but we have the go-ahead from Universal to make this script and did I want to do it. I said no, and they left. ~ Ellen Burstyn

It's the purest form of silver and our tagline is "Taking the 'except fors' out of movies." We're trying to make movies with pure story - without the derogatory sex, violence and language to (rely on) a good story. ~ Drew Waters

The Empire State Building was tall. So what? Just proved New York builders didn't know when to stop at a good story. ~ Craig L. Rice

The gift of a good story is as infinite as the stars. ~ Jennifer LeBlanc

'Downton Abbey' didn't have the impact it had just because it was a good story about people. It was something about that period and that world that was fascinating to people on a level that wasn't just as an entertainment. ~ Noah Hawley

To begin with, I want to tell a good story, a story that people will listen to and that they'll think this is true, even if it is a story that might be defined as - as myth or legend or even fanciful. ~ Joseph Bruchac

You can't tell a good story without conflict - the story can't be beautiful or meaningful. We're taught to run from conflict, and it's robbing us of some really good stories. ~ Donald Miller

Brainstorming, for me, takes place in my bed at night between the time I turn out my lights and I finally fall asleep. It is not a very violent storm, but what's happening is I am just thinking about different ideas and maybe things I've seen that day that I think might make a good story. ~ Chris Van Allsburg

It takes courage, humiliating courage, to step aside from your own sovereignty and imagined control and begin looking for the gift that comes unmerited. Yes, I'm talking about grace. Grace by my definition is the gift that comes unearned. In a world of unbelievably able bodies, where new diets are fashioned every day to keep my brand of story away, it is hard to realize you may be living in the middle of the best story ever told. That the story of breast cancer could possibly be a good story? A great story even? It would be easier to shake my fist at the test results and scream that this isn't the right story, but to receive - humbly receive - the story no one would ever want, and know there is goodness in the midst of its horror, is not something I could ever do in my own strength. I simply cannot. That receiving comes from the One who received His own suffering for a much greater purpose than my own. ~ Kara Tippetts

The telling of a good story, especially one that is real and true, is always exciting. ~ Aeriel Miranda

I don't see a difference between playing a performance capture role and a live action role, they're just characters to me at the end of the day and I'm an actor who wants to explore those characters in fantastically written scripts. The only caveat is a good story is a good character. ~ Andy Serkis

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth. ~ Diane Setterfield

You can take a handful of dollars, a good story, and people with passion and make a movie that will stand up against any $70 million movie. ~ Jason Patric

I think a good story's a good story and a good character's a good character. ~ Michael Sheen

A good story, you'd have said, is like our river Drina: never calm, it doesn't trickle along, it is rough and broad, tributaries flow in to enrich it, it rises above its banks, it bubbles and roars, here and there it flows into shallows but then it comes to rapids again, preludes to the depths where there's no splashing. But one thing neither the Drina nor the stories can do: there's no going back for any of them. The water can't turn back and choose another bed, just as promises now can't be kept. No drowned man comes up again asking for a towel, no love is found again, no tobacconist fails to be born in the first place, no bullet shoots out of a neck and back into the gun, the dam will hold or will not hold. The Drina has no delta. ~ Sasa Stanisic

If we accept the premise that we're always wrong, it really removes the incentive to spend a lot of time trying to make good guesses because even the good guesses turn out to be wrong. So, make plausible guesses ... and tell a good story. ~ James S.A. Corey

That is the power of a good story. It can encourage you, it can make you laugh, it can bring you joy. It will make you think, it will tap innto your hidden emotions, and it can make you cry. The power of a story can also bring about healing, give you peace, and change your life! (p.15) ~ Jeff Dixon

I'm very happy to be a part of a very successful piece of art, as the 'Saw' films have been. One gets into this to participate. It's the coming together of a good story. So, that aspect of it has been just splendid. It really has nothing to do with me or my popularity. I'm fascinated. ~ Tobin Bell

In documentary films, you're a storyteller using found objects. You still have to have a story arc and all the elements that make a good story. It really helped me mature as a storyteller. ~ Garth Stein

What doesn't kill us makes a good story. ~ Marty Rubin

What counts in a good story is the person inside. Keep it simple. ~ Paulo Coelho

If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

Your first obligation as a writer is to tell the truth and to tell a good story. ~ Lena Waithe

I think a good story, well told is a good story, well told, whether you're watching the episodes all in a row or not. However, it might be fun to take a closer look at how the previous episode ends and how that end relates to the beginning of the next episode. ~ Jenji Kohan

You have very short travel blogs, and I think there's a split among travel writers: the service-oriented writers will say, 'Well, the reader wants to read about his trip, not yours.' Whereas I say, the reader just wants to read a good story and to maybe learn something. ~ Tim Cahill

All I wanted to do was to follow my passion and tell a good story. ~ David Lagercrantz

I want to be known for good work first. A good story and good delivery is just that - period. ~ Megan Alexander

My uncle told a great story with his life, but I think there was such a sadness at his funeral because his story wasn't finished. If you aren't telling a good story, nobody thinks you died too soon; they just think you died. But my uncle died too soon. ~ Donald Miller

That's the strange thing about a good story. No pleasure if you can't share it. ~ Carsten Jensen

The anti-hero or hero usually has a journey or quest so they are interesting as you find out what's going to happen, what they are looking for. What are they trying to do? Sometimes what they do is heroic or comes with a price or sacrifice or maybe the way they do things isn't so great and that's when they become anti-heroes. But the journey of an anti-hero combined with a good story done well is always worthwhile. ~ Keanu Reeves

Yet as the days went by and the pains in my feet subsided, I began to look back on my little adventure with a hint of fondness. When it comes to memories, it seems we all have an editor within who will - if it'll make for a good story - revise the senseless into symbols, or rephrase miseries into warm memories. ~ Ken Ilgunas

Many critics, when trying to praise a short-story collection, will say that it has the heft and scope of a good novel. But for me, one of the highest compliments you can pay a novel is to say that it has the rich texture and eloquent detail of a good story collection. ~ Gary Krist

The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one. ~ Sid Caesar

A good story defies the reader's expectations, and in doing so, brings them satisfaction. ~ Thomas Maltman

A good story is read, a great one takes you with it! ~ James F. Timmins

In few people is discretion stronger than the desire to tell a good story. ~ Murasaki Shikibu

I Need a Good Book

I need a good story.
I need a good book.
The kind that explodes
Off the shelf.
I need some good writing,
Alive and exciting,
To contemplate all by myself.

I need a good novel,
I need a good read.
I probably need
Two or three.
I need a good tale
Of love and betrayal
Or perhaps an adventure at sea.

I need a good saga.
I need a good yarn.
A momentous and mightily
Or slight one.
But with thousands and thousands
And thousands of books,
I need someone to tell me
The right one.

-John Lithgow ~ John Lithgow

I'm just trying to write a good story, strictly from imagination. People just think it's random, they don't see the rewriting, phrasing of characters, choosing the words, bringing the world to light in which the characters live in. That creates an illusion that this is real. ~ Eric Jerome Dickey

A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument ... and the occasional bar fight. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

I don't think it's necessary to shout if you have a good story. But I also don't think you should shy away from being bold in the statement that you're making. ~ Nancy Gibbs

I almost never let reality get in the way of a good story. ~ Elizabeth Bard

I am a reader. A reader isn't someone who just likes to read, but someone who feels such a strong attachment to a book or characters in a book that we feel as if we are literally living the story with them. Our whole life is changed by a good story, and until we finish it, we can't think of anything else. We feel whatever emotions the characters feel, but 10 times stronger. You can't choose to be a reader, you just have to be lucky enough to be born with the gift. Some say it's a good thing. But when you live hundreds of people's lives through text on a page, it screws with our emotions so much that we really don't know who we are anymore. The characters are a part of us. A reader has the best insights on life, and the wisdom to go on with it. It's a gift and a curse, but either way… I am a reader. ~ -Me

I have no problems with remakes, and I think it's interesting. I mean, coming from the theater, we've been remaking 'Hamlet' for a hundred years, so it's no problem to me at all. A good story can be told in many different ways in different places; I just think it's interesting. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

It's so pretentious, but I believe that with comedy, if you have a good story, 90% of it is casting. Once you get the guys and gals in there, it's pretty easy to make a funny movie. ~ Matt Walsh

Nothing except love itself touches us so intimately and forcibly as a good story told exactly right. ~ Jonathan Yardley

I want a good story, with a beginning, middle and end. ~ Tom Stoppard

...if you're telling a good story,you must never spoil it with a truth ~ Gilles Kristian

That's always disappointing when you find a good story and you realize the person has died, because then it's difficult to report. ~ Joshuah Bearman

We don't feel pressure of, 'Let's make this really raunchy.' It's more about making a good story, which is 10 times harder. The raunchy stuff's really easy for us. ~ Matt Stone

Writing is hard work, and if anything's true about the process, it's that fact that a good story is hard to find and even trickier to get on paper. What's less romantic than staring alone at a blank screen? And edgy? I've changed the cat little because I didn't know what my characters were going to say next. ~ Adam Johnson

A movie can and should have some real dissonance throughout - rage, heartache, tears, conflict, catharsis and all the other elements Aristotle demanded of a good story - but the chord has to be resolved. ~ Josh Radnor

I always think if it's a good story, the audience can't wait to run out of the theater and go tweet somebody with the gist of a story, in a nutshell, almost, because it was that interesting. ~ Steven Spielberg

I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets. ~ Spike Lee

I was first a reader and without readers what would be the point in writing. For those of you who love a good story, thank you for being willing to read what we writerly folk create. ~ Michelle Dennis Evans

The Fay have always preferred a good story over a well-thought plan. ~ Adam Rex

You might have noticed that I have been sending you used books. I have done this not to save money, but to make a point which is that a used book, unlike a used car, hasn't lost any of its initial value. A good story rolls of the lot into the hands of its new reader as smoothly as the day it was written. And there's another reason for these used paperbacks that never cost much even when new; I like the idea of holding a book that someone else has held, of eyes running over lines that have already seen the light of other eyes. That, in one image, is the community of readers, is the communion of literature. ~ Yann Martel

To me the most important thing is a good story, though I know how cliche that sounds. ~ Josh Trank

I think good art should always be entertaining, or at least give pleasure of some sort. And my chief goal as a writer has always been to tell a good story and give my readers a good time. ~ Kenneth Oppel

Writing 'Hoop Roots' was a substitute or a surrogate activity. I can't play anymore - my body won't cooperate - so in the writing of the book, I was looking to tell a good story about my life and about basketball, but I was also looking to entertain myself the way that I entertain myself when I play. ~ John Edgar Wideman

Don't ruin a good story with the facts. ~ Jerry Guarino

One thing I've learned about the press is that they're always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. It's in the nature of the job, and I understand that. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, ~ Donald J. Trump

I have yet to meet very many people in the press who are really, truly interested in writing a good story or getting at the truth. Most press people, when they come into an article, have an angle that they want already, so they need points to support that angle, whatever the angle may be. ~ Janeane Garofalo

A good story never dies. ~ Roberta Williams

What makes a good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who'd rather write a good story. ~ Jim Bishop

I look for a good story. Usually the best stories are the ones that are unbelievably true. 'Soul Surfer' is one of those stories. ~ Dennis Quaid

Character is always my driving force. And to tell a good story and to provide an entertaining read. ~ Monica Ali

[T]o tell a good story, you need courage. Courage to fully become someone else, even if -- and especially if -- that person was a more vulnerable version of yourself. ~ Catherine Lowell

You don't want to start A Game of Thrones when you might catch fire all of a sudden. There's something horribly unfair about dying in the middle of a good story, before you have a chance to see how it all comes out. Of course, I suppose everyone always dies in the middle of a good story, in a sense. Your own story. Or the story of your children. Or your grandchildren. ~ Joe Hill

My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell. ~ Harold Ramis

To me, it's about good work, a good story, and tastefully done. There's so many stigmas - oh, you're on the small screen or you do films or you do reality. It's about the project and not the medium on which it's delivered. It's the story you tell, period. ~ Keshia Knight Pulliam

The elements of a good story are most definitely details, little bitty details. That does it, especially when you're describing, when you're setting the scene and everything. It's like you're painting a picture, so details are very important. Also, the music gotta be right. The music can really set the tone for the story and let you know what the story is gonna be about, but definitely, it's the vibe in the place where you at and the detail. ~ Big Boi

My only want and wish, really, was to tell a good story. I wanted to do good work, tell a good story, and give the character a voice. Those were my only expectations. ~ Uzo Aduba

Given that I don't know anything, when I am making up stories about the future, why not make it a good story instead of a scary one? ~ Sharon Weil

Everybody loves a good story, but good storytelling doesn't come easy to everybody. It's a skill that takes a lifetime to master. So study the great stories and then go find some of your own. Your stories will get better the more you tell them. ~ Austin Kleon

If you have a good story, it doesn't have to be overproduced. I want our stories to reveal the wonders of the human spirit and the richness of life in California, including its history, people, culture and natural wonders. ~ Huell Howser

You have such a sacred responsibility when you touch John Lewis's story, when you touch the story of the movement. You don't want to leave anything out, but you want to tell a good story so the people will read it and they're engaged and they don't fall apart with extraneous details. ~ Andrew Aydin

A good story is obviously a difficult thing to invent, but its difficulty is a poor reason for despising it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A good story conveys a message that strengthens our values. ~ Ronald R. Cooke

Because people want their bodies to smell like oceans they'll never have time to visit. They wear a perfume that promises sex, when all they really want is someone to snuggle on the couch with in baggy pajamas. We'll all choose a good story over the truth any day. ~ Erica Bauermeister

I think the writer makes a good story good or a good story bad. The writer has a great deal of responsibility. ~ Tom Robinson

Governments took advantage of the tendency for local pride and convinced their people that their country was the best at everything and governments were the reason. Governments never let the facts get in the way of a good story, but the internet has a way of inserting undeniable facts into the conversation that temper national pride. ~ Adam Kokesh

She lifted the book to her nose. A book had a smell more soothing than any of Mrs. Hawkins's herbs. There was nothing like a good story to take her out of a world she didn't much like. ~ Cindy Thomson

Cat Rambo: Where do you think the perennial debate between what is literary fiction and what is genre is sited?

Norman Spinrad: I think it's a load of crap. See my latest column in Asimov's, particularly re The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I detest the whole concept of genre. A piece of fiction is either a good story well told or it isn't. The supposed dichotomy between "literary fiction" and "popular fiction" is ridiculous. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Mailer, did not have serious literary intent? As writers of serious literary intent, they didn't want to be "popular," meaning sell a lot of books? They wanted to be unpopular and have terrible sales figures to prove they were "serious"?

I say this is bullshit and I say the hell with it. "Genre," if it means anything at all, is a restrictive commercial requirement. "Westerns" must be set in the Old West. "Mysteries" must have a detective solving a crime, usually murder. "Nurse Novels" must have a nurse. And so forth.

In the strictly literary sense, neither science fiction nor fantasy are "genres." They are anti-genres. They can be set anywhere and anywhen except in the mimetic here and now or a real historical period. They are the liberation of fiction from the constraints of "genre" in an absolute literary sense. ~ Norman Spinrad

That guy in the corner. Never tells the truth, as a matter of principle. Why answer a question, he says, if you can tell a good story instead? ~ Pete McCarthy

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a form of service journalism. To be successful, I think it has to be a combination of a good story, it has to be funny, and it also needs to be packed with useful information. ~ Ted Allen

The same principles that make up a good story also make up a good life. ~ Donald Miller

The Crocodile The sun of the Macusi people was worried. Every day there were fewer fish in their ponds. He put the crocodile in charge of security. The ponds got emptier. The crocodile, security guard and thief, invented a good story about invisible assailants, but the sun didn't believe it, took a machete, and left the crocodile's body all crisscrossed with cuts. To calm him down, the crocodile offered his beautiful daughter in marriage. "I'll be expecting her," said the sun. As the crocodile had no daughter, he sculpted a woman in the trunk of a wild plum tree. "Here she is," he said, and plunged into the water, looking out of the corner of his eye, the way he always looks. It was the woodpecker who saved his life. Before the sun arrived, the woodpecker pecked at the wooden girl below the belly. Thus she, who was incomplete, was open for the sun to enter. (112) ~ Eduardo Galeano

With movies, you are always in search is a good story, one that everyone will relate to and love. I love finding those stories and creating a visual world to tell the story. ~ Don Bluth

To me, the most important thing is to tell a good story. If I can do that, I think that enlightenment, respect of nature, etc. follows. ~ Kathryn Lasky

That's how a good story works. It changes how you feel. It brings you to a greater appreciation, a greater joy, of your own existence. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I'm drawn to a good story, really, as I hope most people are. For me, it's the story that's going to stay with you eventually, not necessarily the genre. I go to watch a film because of the story, not because it was a Western or a comedy. ~ Ryan Kwanten

A good story should change the way you see the world. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Why do bad things happen to good people?'
'Because it makes a good story. ~ Andrew Kaufman