Bonus Story Quotes

I'm a dog. I don't have a name yet.
(a dazed Namiki)
This guy is "Namikisan". That's what Kanade calls him, anyway.
What...have we here? SNIFF. SNIFF.
...
CHOMP. CHOMP.
'Hey! Did you just eat something off the ground?! Like you didn't stuff your belly at home.' (-Namiki)
Hmm? My instinct told me it was okay! And it's almost always right! Like that one time... That one time...

'I'm sure some good samaritan'll pick him up.' (-man)
'Yeah, who'll take him to the dog pound!' (-woman)
'Well, there's nothing we can do about it now...' (-man)
Hmm?
...
RUSTLE. RUSTLE.
(Namiki pauses, looks down at him)
PAT.
KNEAD. KNEAD. KNEAD.
'Heh heh.' (-Namiki)
Not so rough!
KNEAD. KNEAD.
Oh, yeah? Try this on for size! NIP. NIP.
'Ha ha ha! Ha... ..... ...Oh. I see. You're...' (-Namiki)
? WAG. WAG.
'...gonna die.' (-Namiki)
That one time...my animal instinct told me...
(Namiki looks at him with a pained expression)
"He's the one!"
That's why, even when he walked away at first, even when it rained, I knew it would be okay.
(Namiki appears in the rain and reaches down for him, smiling)
My instinct was right on target.

[at the Animal Hospital]
'He probably ate something off the ground.' (-vet.)
GROAN. GROAN.
'I knew it! Can't you even tell when something's safe to eat or not?! I thought dogs were supposed to have instincts fo ~ Sakura Tsukuba

For a novelist, the gaps in a story are as intriguing as material that still exists. ~ Sara Sheridan

This is a true story but I can't believe it's really happening. It's a murder story, too. I can't believe my luck. And a love story (I think), of all strange things, so late in the century, so late in the goddamned day. ~ Martin Amis

Books have been vastly important in my life - as both a reader and a writer. I've learned that the great gift of literature is that someone else's tale becomes a chapter of your story. And I still feel books are the best art form for making contact with another consciousness, which is why reading a good book by yourself never feels lonely. ~ Bob Smith

I can forgive almost any crime if a great story is left in its wake. ~ Pat Conroy

One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms. ~ Joseph Story

We realize, though, because we must, that remembrance is finite. It crosses only so many generations before it fades to indistinction. One man remembers his father and perhaps his grandfather and the details of the lives that were lived. But it's harder to see further back in time. I know the name of my great-grandfather, but our living time did not intersect. We did not walk the earth at the same time. Thus, to me he's a photograph; a story I heard my grandfather tell. He's not a life I remember. And my children may not know him at all, unless by chance they can find him in a book. In time, he will be forgotten entirely, just as we all will with enough revolutions of the earth around the slowly expiring sun. Each fragile heart now beating will one day stop ... We are little more than one tree's growth of leaves in hillside forest. We will enjoy our brief moment in the sun, only to fall away with all the other to make way for the next bright young generation. ~ Phillip Lewis

Story Climax is the fourth of the five-part structure. This crowning Major Reversal is not necessarily full of noise and violence. Rather, it must be full of meaning. If I could send a telegram to the film producers of the world, it would be these three words: "Meaning Produces Emotion." Not money; not sex; not special effects; not movie stars; not lush photography. ~ Robert McKee

Programs has a temporary results leading to nothingness, and the Gospel the brings the result of Eternal life. ~ Tommie Scott

I came to Oxford looking for a Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience. I chose to experience a lifetime.
I know that one day he will lose to the waterfall, slip behind its turbulent curtain forever, lost to me like something out of a fairy tale. But in our story, there's no villain, no witch, no fairy godmother, no moral imperative or cautionary conclusion. No happily-ever-after.
It just is. It's life.
The water keeps flowing as we come and go.
We were never forever, Jamie and I. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone and are loved by someone, you might find forever after.
Whatever and wherever it is. ~ Julia Whelan

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels. ~ John Sladek

I think up to this point, it's been difficult to suggest a world where Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and others could exist in the same universe. That was one of the things I really wanted to try and get at. Not to mention, the amazing opportunity to bring those characters and have those characters tell an important story, their own story, within the confines of a film. ~ Zack Snyder

I wanted to write you a story about magic. I wanted rabbits appearing from hats. I wanted balloons lifting you into the sky. It turned out to be nothing but sadness, war, heartbreak. You never saw it, but there's a garden inside me. ~ Shane Jones

He didn't finish most of the stories he started anymore, couldn't bear to. He felt weak at the thought of reading another story about vampires having sex with other vampires. He tried to struggle through Lovecraft pastiches, but at the first painfully serious reference to the Elder Gods, he felt some important part of him going numb inside, the way a foot or a hand will go to sleep when the circulation is cut off. He feared the part of him being numbed was his soul. ~ Joe Hill

I'm still trying to figure out how to write about cancer and my family's experience with it. If I had been able to write 'The Pura Principle' back in those days, I'm positive it would have had no humor in it. Which means the story would have been false. ~ Junot Diaz

The legacy of the fairy story in my brain is that everything will work out. In fiction it would be very hard for me, as a writer, to give a bad ending to a good character, or give a good ending to a bad character. That's probably not a very postmodern thing to say. ~ Kate Atkinson

At the end of the story of my life, I want to say it was the best book I had ever read. ~ Avina Celeste

Writing a story is like going down a path in the woods. You follow the path. You don't worry about getting lost. You just go. ~ Jan Brett

But you speak of Master Gandalf, as if he was in a story that had come to an end.'
'Yes, we do,' said Pippin sadly. 'The story seems to be going on, but I am afraid Gandalf has fallen out of it. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Light upon light upon light---
back and back we trace it to its Source,
radiating light and sound---a voice, an echo
guiding those who hear Love's desire
unfold the universe's story,
who come to this call
like thirsty birds to water.
Beloved, the One creates for us
models, signs, symbols, parables
everywhere we look to remind us
of our Source.
And the one behind all
understands and embraces all---
the past and future journey of every thing
from seed to star. ~ Neil Douglas-Klotz-Klotz

On a blustery October night in a church outside Minneapolis, several hundred believers had gathered for a three-day seminar. I began with a one-hour presentation on the gospel of grace and the reality of Salvation. Using Scripture, story, symbolism, and personal experience, I focused on the total sufficiency of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on Calvary. The service ended with a song and a prayer.
Leaving the church by a side door, the pastor turned to his associate and fumed, 'Humph, that airhead didn't say one thing about what we have to do to earn our salvation!'
Something is radically wrong. ~ Brennan Manning

You know that was much more of a kind of cameo, I love the movie, I love the story, I love Johnny as a fun little role but it was more of a cameo, not anywhere near as developed as this role. ~ Oliver Platt

Moments ... there are always moments where a decision has to be made. In mortal life there is always a choice. One road or another? The ultimate choose your own adventure story. In the clans, there is only one option, and that is to do whatever your clan's oracle tells you to do. ~ Kim Cormack

I love you in my very own way.
Like a stone loves the mosses around it
Like a sea loves the pebbles in it
Like a coincidence ...
Taking you as the way you are,
With all the bruises, scars and broken parts all around you and your heart.
I love you in my very own way
By throwing the stone, the mosses, the sea and the pebbles to your head
Like i want to kill you.
Just because of envying the love
That my heart spend on you. ~ Arzum Uzun

The writer was able to capture many of the feelings that I actually had as a abandoned and then adopted child. Actually I have just finished my own story along with my sister that we found each other after 56 years and what a journey. ~ David M. Brodzinsky

I am looking into a silent world. ~ J.G. Ballard

She was now drowning in that pool of desires without having any idea about the depth of it. ~ Viraj J. Mahajan

Like all fairy tales, the Story of Sleeping Beauty begins with 'Once upon a time,' and continues with a foolish young princess who makes a witch very angry, and then takes a nap until her boyfriend wakes her up with a kiss and insists on getting married, at which point the story ends with the phrase 'happily ever after, ~ Lemony Snicket

Let me get this straight. The future of our relationship hinged on advice from a fifteen-year-old girl, a probably untrue story from a one-eyed Chihuahua trainer, and me unromantically - yet skillfully - kissing you on top of silverware and china? ~ Richelle Mead

In the story, I think as an actor you're just trying to fit into the world. ~ Charlize Theron

There is only one story. ~ Thomas C. Foster

I think of a myth as a story that helps you explain all the different pieces of your life. In that broad sense, there is no way to live without mythology. ~ Lewis Hyde

Haida stopped and glanced at the clock on the wall. Then he looked at Tsukuru. He was, of course, Haida the son, but Haida the father has been the same age in his story, and so the two of them began to overlap in Tsukuru's mind. It was an odd sensation, as if the two distinct temporalities had blended into one. Maybe it wasn't the father who had experienced this, but the son. Maybe Haida was just relating it as if his father had experienced it, when in reality he was the one who had. Tsukuru couldn't shake this illusion. ~ Haruki Murakami

It's always a challenge bringing a great story classic to the screen. Giving visual form to the characters and places that have only existed in the imagination. But it's the kind of challenge we enjoy. ~ Walt Disney

It feels so good to find out I mean everything to the person who means everything to me. ~ Leslie Lee Sanders

There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye. ~ W. H. Auden

A closed book will lie there like a dead horse. But an open book will kick, buck, and bolt through perceived adventures like a wild and free stallion. So hold on. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

I don't know if I will have the time to write any more letters, because I might be too busy trying to participate. So, if this does end up being the last letter, I just want you to know that I was in a bad place before I started high school, and you helped me. Even if you didn't know what I was talking about, or know someone who's gone through it, you made me not feel alone. Because I know there are people who say all these things don't happen. And there are people who forget what it's like to be sixteen when they turn seventeen. I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now, these moments are not stories. This is happening. I am here, and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that song, and that drive with the people who you love most in this world. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite. ~ Stephen Chbosky

I believe, when it comes to storytelling ... that mistakes are often the beginning of the best ideas. After all, a mistake wasn't planned. It can't be a cliché. All you have to do is think of a reason why the mistake isn't a mistake at all, and you might have something fresh and wonderful, something to stimulate a story you never thought of quite that way before. ~ Orson Scott Card

I don't write 'romance' stories, but character love stories, like the short story fiction published at Romantic4Ever.com and at WeddingNight.com, with romance of the heart and of adventure, in its many, many human varieties, as seen through the eyes and hearts and bodies of realist characters; whether about military special forces regiments, mail order brides in the outback, class-crossed samurai lovers, wealthy Victorian 'minorities,' or luscious vampires of another color. ~ Neale Sourna

Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story , you, upon hearing the words 'soccer' and 'neighbor' in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say, not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit - that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog - would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories. ~ Garth Stein

When I started writing Forest Life, I was suicidal and drunk because I had lost someone I love to a tragedy. Afterward, my question was this: why love when death and suffering are inevitable? I won't reveal my solution to this problem, but I do present it in the pages of the book. These are only a few of the issues I grapple with in the story and I hope that you'll read the story and consciously address your own uncertainty and fear." - Shane Crash, Provoketive Magazine Write-Up 2012 ~ Shane Crash

Our oh-so-brief relationship had been like spending a day in the sunlight when you've lived your whole life underground (my former self being the mole man in this story). Maybe that was all we got when it came to relationships like that - flashes of sunlight. Maybe it was too bright to be sustained for any extended period of time. Maybe I should be thankful. ~ Cora Carmack

And nothing inspires as much shame as being a parent. Children confront us with our paradoxes and hypocrisies, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why - Why do we do this? Why don't we do that? - and often there isn't a good one. So you say, simply, because. Or you tell a story that you know isn't true. And whether or not your face reddens, you blush. The shame of parenthood - which is a good shame - is that we want our children to be more whole than we are, to have satisfactory answers. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I'm one of those writers who started off writing novels and came to writing short stories later, partly because I didn't have the right ideas, partly because I think that short stories are more difficult. I think learning to write short stories also made me attracted toward a paring down of the novel form. ~ Julian Barnes