Infancy Narrative Quotes

This unceasing interplay between experience and narrative is a uniquely human attribute. We are the storytellers, the ones who put life into words. ~ Christina Baldwin

The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind
yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

[Genesis] is not myth. It is not history in the conventional sense, a mere recording of events. Nor is it theology: Genesis is less about God than about human beings and their relationship with God. The theology is almost always implicit rather than explicit. What Genesis is, in fact, is philosophy written in a deliberately non-philosophical way. It deals with all the central questions of philosophy: what exists (ontology), what can we know (epistemology), are we free (philosophical psychology), and how we should behave (ethics). But it does so in a way quite unlike the philosophical classics from Plato to Wittgenstein. To put it at its simplest: philosophy is truth as system. Genesis is truth as story. It is a unique work, philosophy in the narrative mode. ~ Jonathan Sacks

If you're not [Federico] Fellini you might make something very vulgar. Animation made it possible to maintain unity with all these different narratives. ~ Marjane Satrapi

This book argues that evolution is happening all around us. It is the best way of understanding how the human world changes, as well as the natural world. Change in human institutions, artefacts and habits is incremental, inexorable and inevitable. It follows a narrative, going from one stage to the next; it creeps rather than jumps; it has its own spontaneous momentum, ~ Matt Ridley

A major boom in real stock prices in the U.S. after 'Black Tuesday' brought them halfway back to 1929 levels by 1930. This was followed by a second crash, another boom from 1932 to 1937, and a third crash. Speculative bubbles do not end like a short story, novel, or play. There is no final denouement that brings all the strands of a narrative into an impressive final conclusion. In the real world, we never know when the story is over. ~ Robert J. Shiller

And that sort of victimization narrative is something we shouldn't contribute to. On the other hand, we have to acknowledge that there is a radical element in Islam, jihadism, that needs to be called by name and needs to be confronted. ~ Marco Rubio

In my opinion, the most significant works of the twentieth century are those that rise beyond the conceptual tyranny of genre; they are, at the same time, poetry, criticism, narrative, drama, etc. ~ Juan Goytisolo

The narrative fallacy, Bezos explained, was a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan to describe how humans are biologically inclined to turn complex realities into soothing but oversimplified stories. ~ Anonymous

No one remembers her beginnings. Mothers and aunts tell us about infancy and early childhood, hoping we won't forget the past when they had total control over our lives and secretly praying that because of it, we'll include them in our future. ~ Rita Mae Brown

I don't subscribe to the narrative that Africa is backward because of colonialism. ~ Mo Ibrahim

Maybe the word hasn't been invented yet – that thing beyond diversity. We often define movements by what they're against, but the final goal is greater than the powers it dismantles, deeper than any statistic. It's something like equity – a commitment to harvesting a narrative language so broad it has no face, no name. ~ Daniel Jose Older

Insane asylum' - among the great narrative options, that'd be one step short of 'and then she woke up', right? Or is that what you're planning next episode as we push the tandem-story envelope?

Cool nude-hairbrushing scene, by the way. I assume it's her butt that the pillow's caressing? She's a thoughtful one, isn't she? Shame about the hair knot. That could wreck a person's whole day.

- Joel ~ Rebecca Sparrow

Nuclear episodes stand out in bold print in life story as narrative high points, low points and turning points, explaining how the person has remained the same and how he or she has changed over time. ~ Dan P. McAdams

Storytelling entails weaving a narrative out of the disturbing, strange, inspirational, and unremarkable detritus of life. By picking among the litter of our personal experiences to select evocative anecdotes to weave into a narrative format, we reveal which of life's legendary offerings prove the most sublime to us. Acts of omission are momentous. Our narration of personal sketches divulge what factoids inspire us or do not stir us into action, or contain obdurate truths that prove virtually impossible to crack. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Does being true to one's self mean offering the literal truth or the truth that should have been, the truth of the image of one's self? It hardly matters by this time. By this time the border between seeing straight on and seeing round the corners of solid objects, between the world as smooth and coherent and the world as dissociated skinless particle, is thoroughly blurred. No longer a case of double vision, but of two separate eyes whose separate visions - what happened and what might have happened - come together in what we call the past, which we see with hindsight. Memory is revision. I have just destroyed another piece of my past, to tell a story. ~ Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Science is as yet in its infancy, and we can foretell little of the future save that the thing that has not been is the thing that shall be; that no beliefs, no values, no institutions are safe. ~ John B. S. Haldane

Beginning with Santa in infancy, and ending with the Tooth Fairy as the child acquires adult teeth. Or, plainly put, beginning with all the possibility of childhood, and ending with an absolute trust in the national currency. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time. ~ Haruki Murakami

So much for my great vendetta, so much for the tireless hunt for my betrayer. Isn't this how life turns out, more often than not? It refuses to conform to your needs - the narrative needs that you feel are essential to give rough shape to your time on this earth. ~ William Boyd

Listening to Ella furiously and endlessly unfurl the yarns of the Mingus tales, I understood that the need to tell stories is deeply embedded in our minds, and inseparably entangled with the mechanisms that generate and absorb language. Narrative imagination
and therefore fiction
is a basic evolutionary tool of survival. We process the world by telling stories and produce human knowledge through our engagement with imagined selves. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

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

We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative ~ Kameron Hurley

The Internet is still in its infancy. When it reaches adulthood, the Internet will change how we live and work. ~ Kambiz Mostofizadeh

I don't really think in terms of the future of literature. I think literature will be around "forever" - but in a relatively niche way, like jazz and poetry, although probably more widely consumed than jazz and poetry since it's fundamentally a narrative form. And I think that's important and places like Word Riot and The New York Tyrant and n+1 will be responsible for keeping it alive. ~ Nick Antosca

I do a lot of urban fantasy, which is modern-day cities, but you've got magic, you've got fairies running around, or cryptozoological creatures running around, and I'm pulling very heavily on my background as a folklore major and having done some animation work and all of that, and I'm pulling from the modern fairy tale narrative. ~ Seanan McGuire

We were all trapped in stories, she said, just as he used to say, his wavy hair, his naughty smile, his beautiful mind, each of us the prisoner of our own solipsistic narrative, each family the captive of the family story, each community locked within its own tale of itself, each people the victims of their own versions of history, and there were parts of the world where the narratives collided and went to war, where there were two or more incompatible stories fighting for space on, to speak, the same page. ~ Salman Rushdie

In the infancy of new religions, the wise and learned commonly esteem the matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention or regard. And when afterwards they would willingly detect the cheat in order to undeceive the deluded multitude, the season is now past, and the records and witnesses, which might clear up the matter, have perished beyond recovery. ~ Christopher Hitchens

My early years, my weakling, teething, vaccination, memoirs of the various nursery maids, I dismiss unrecorded: if the Faculty desire a narrative of this period, I fear I cannot oblige them; it would interest no one else.
One observation however suggests itself; if I was at that time what I am now, what transports of delight I must have received when gathered to the warm full breasts of the woman who bore me I drew from that holy source the rich and essentially feminine fluid which gushing down my throat animated my little frame. ~ M. Le Compte Du Bouleau

[W]hen the modern mythmaker, the writer of literary fairy tales, dares to touch the old magic and try to make it work in new ways, it must be done with the surest of touches. It is, perhaps, a kind of artistic thievery, this stealing of old characters, settings, the accoutrements of magic. But then, in a sense, there is an element of theft in all art; even the most imaginative artist borrows and reconstructs the archetypes when delving into the human heart. That is not to say that using a familiar character from folklore in the hopes of shoring up a weak narrative will work. That makes little sense. Unless the image, character, or situation borrowed speaks to the author's condition, as cryptically and oracularly as a dream, folklore is best left untapped. ~ Jane Yolen

Fate is a quantity very much like TV: an unstoppable narrative, written, produced and directed by somebody else. ~ Zadie Smith

I am the daughter of Mr. Neo-realism: I should gravitate towards narrative simply told, character, the truth. And I do love those movies. ~ Isabella Rossellini

Marie Houzelle is a master of the first-person narrative. In Tita she has created a strange, utterly original child whose deadpan certainties are a beguiling invitation to readers of all ages. ~ Katharine Weber

The scriptures are basically a narrative of God's interaction with human kind. If we lose this notion of God's desire for relationship with human beings, we're in danger of losing the heart of the Christian faith. Doctrines, of course, will flow from that, but when the scriptures call us to Believe, we're being called to put our trust in Someone, not just agree with a bunch of doctrine. Demons could do that. We are to commit ourselves to Christ. ~ Paul Copan

They teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches. This is what any religious texts teach us. They're all tales about characters who must confront life and overcome obstacles, figures setting off on a journey of spiritual enrichment through exploits and revelations. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Forget narrative, backstory, characterisation, exposition, all of that. Just make the audience want to know what happens next. ~ David Mamet

You get a lot of narrative energy from people who make really big mistakes, who act against their best interests, who do things that turn out to have serious consequences. It's very hard make a story out of people doing the right thing over and over again. ~ Kelly Link

you know: CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF HUGS IS THE ENTIRE REASON I EVER ENGAGE IN ANY NARRATIVE, FICTIONAL OR OTHERWISE?? ~ Ryan North

The young blush much more freely than the old but not during infancy, which is remarkable, as we know that infants at a very early age redden from passion. ~ Charles Darwin

Writers know - especially new writers - [that] a lot of it [creative process] is the prewriting stage, the talking, brainstorming, the narrative arc and the character sketches. ~ Jenna Bush