STORY QUOTATIONS | the-parable-fund

Some of Pati's Favorite Quotations about Stories

"We're all living a story today. It often doesn’t feel like a story. It feels like dishes in the sink. Emails in our inbox. Another round of the same old routines. Sometimes the plot is confusing and we want to cut a chapter out with sharp scissors. Sometimes we want to be the editors with the red ink. Sometimes we want to skip right to the end just to make sure it says, “And they lived happily ever after.” There's so much we don't know, but we can be certain of this: the Author is good and we are loved. Yes, even when the unexpected sentence comes. When we face that dark-as-night period. When the syllables jumble together and we scratch our heads. Even in those places, between those lines, there is a God at work who has always been speaking, always been creating beauty out of the broken. "Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25, NLT).

"Stories have to be told or else they die." - Kate Morton, The Watchmaker's Daughter

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” - Maya Angelou

“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!" - Jeff Dixon, The Key to the Kingdom

"So long ago, and yet it was yesterday,,,,with only the merest effort I can see her now... "

- Kate Morton, The Watchmaker's Daughter

"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." - C.S. Lewis

"Fog reminds us that over time, grace softens the edges of our pain and melds it with the borders of joy. I pray that when you look back at your story you will find that a gentle mist has settled, renewing your spirit and giving you strength for the life you are created for.” - Rachel Anne Ridge

"Jesus is still doing many other things. He isn't done with history. He isn't finished with the part of it that is our story either. Whatever scene we find ourselves in today, it isn't the final page. Hold on, there is a turning coming. There is more than this, more than here and now. We have not yet seen the there and then. We are overcomers. We are warriors. We are a force to be reckoned with in this world. And whatever the future brings, our God is still holding the pen. He is the only one who gets to write “The End.”

Cheering you on in your story,

Holley Gerth

"History is best remembered as a story and whoever tells it best shapes the past...In the end, stories might be the most valuable legacy that we can create. Paintings will fade and sculptures will crumble, but stories can be retold forever. Storytelling is still the most effective way to encourage empathy and understanding in our culture. There is power in stories and that power is the ability to move people to think." - Kevin A. Kuhn, Author of Ten Tales of a Dark Tomorrow

"Stories are the world's memory. The past is erased without stories. " - Chaim Potok

"The Holocaust in its enormity defies languages and art, and yet both must be used to tell the tale, the tale that must be told." - Elie Weisel, Holocaust Survivor

"God is the Master Storyteller, and He is writing a story with all the lives of humankind—including you and me. What story are you living out today? " - Jill Briscoe

"The days are short, the weather's cold, by tavern fires tales are told." - New England Almanac, December 1704

“After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
―Philip Pullman

“Every great love starts with a great story...”
―Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

"The magic of storytelling has the power to shape not only our minds but the world around us. And the story, like music, has the kind of magic that not only draws people closer to one another but draws them further up and further into the great Story." - The Rabbit Room, Nashville, TN

“Your story might be different than what you imagined, but it can still be good.” - Holley Gerth

“If you want someone to hear the truth, you should tell them the truth. But if you want someone to LOVE the truth, you should tell them a story.” - Andrew Peterson

"Most people have at least one memory of a present - given or received - that continues to glow in the mind, like a good story." - Phyllis Theroux

"One of the most valuable things we can do to heal one another is listen to each other's stories." - Rebecca Falls

"...even though you cannot change the events of your story, you can change the way you experience your story."

- Curt Thompson, M.D.

"We're all stories, in the end." - Steven Moffat

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
―Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

"A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart." - Chuck Palahniuk, Stranger than Fiction

"Stories don't always have to have happy endings." - Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

"The first duty of love is to listen." - Paul Tillich

"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." - Gilda Radner (1946-1989) Jewish Comedian who died of Ovarian Cancer. She was a star on Saturday Night Live that was hilarious.

"All stories are about people, places, or happenings. Our whole life is our library where personal memories are books we are looking for." - Pati Kachel

"There are stories inside all of us to be told." - Pati Kachel

"No matter where you are on the age spectrum - there are more adventures to be had, tales to be told, and stories to record in your life." - Jan Silvious

"May you rest in the promise that you are never alone and your beautiful story has already been carefully and meticulously written just for you. May you end this day celebrating the beauty of God's everlasting grace."

- Holley Gerth

“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”
―Leo Tolstoy

"All the really great American storytellers are either dead or dying. You know, I am not feeling so good..."

- Jed Chauncey Garthune

“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 into 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, The Key to the Kingdom: Unlocking Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom

"You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories." - Garrison Keillor

"Stories have the ability to shed light in the dark corners of our hearts, where straight reason cannot."

- Dorothy Sander

“Anyone can tell a story. Take a few odds and ends of things that happen to you, dress them up, shuffle them about, add a dash of excitement, a little color, and there you have it.”
―Lloyd Alexander, The Arkadians

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”
―Rudyard Kipling

“You know what a storyteller is, don't you? It's a person that has a good memory who hopes other people don't.”
―Sandra Dallas

“A story has its purpose and its path. It must be told correctly for it to be understood.”
―Marcus Sedgwick

“If a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen . . . A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar.”
―John Steinbeck, East of Eden

"Remember: Your story is powerful. Find it, own it, use it, and share it with the world!" - Nikki Abramson & Betty Liedtke

"My story isn't over yet. God alone holds the pen that gets to write "THE END." " - Holley Gerth

"THE STORY GIRL had far more fire and intensity and strength of will... She would never be satisfied as a dabbler; whatever her future career should be, into it she would throw all her powers of mind and heart and soul."

~ L.M. Montgomery

"If you want someone to hear the truth, you should tell them the truth. But if you want someone to LOVE the truth, you should tell them a story." - Andrew Peterson, Christian musician & novelist

"There is always hope when Jesus is writing your story." - Holley Gerth

“Things worth telling - take time”
―Nicholas Denmon

"The idea that storytelling has power is, of course, no surprise to Christians. Storytelling was among Jesus's primary communications tools. He told lots of stories. All the time. Great artists...they inspire us. They inspire us to see ourselves in a story's hero and to live lives marked by courage, generosity, love, and faithfulness. One way Christians can impact culture is to simply share good stories with those around us. You may not be a J.R.R.Tolkien or a T.S. Eliot, but you can learn and recommend their works. And we have plenty of real-life stories to tell also, of Christian heroes like Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer, of incredible Christian conversions like St. Augustine and Charles Colson, and of those Christian heroes of today who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, all while enduring hardships and persecution and finding joy in loving God and their neighbors. And of course, we should share these stories because, in the end, they, like all good stories do, ultimately will point our hearts and imaginations to the Greatest Story of all." - John Stonestreet, Breakpoint

"If He has become God alone to you, giving powerful evidence of His unfailing love, you have a story to tell.

Start talking." - Beth Moore

"Wisdom passed down comes from the art of storytelling...What links every generation is the wisdom that is passed down by the stories and all the wonderful storytellers that share their experiences with us. There is an art to being able to paint a beautiful and soulful image with our words. In every family, there are those that can light up our imaginations and our thirst to hear all the fanciful tales they have to tell...and that one day we can pass on to others."

- Zen to Zany

"TELL ME A STORY.

Tell me a story.

In this century and moment, of mania,

Tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.

The name of the story will be Time,

But you must not pronounce its name.

Tell me a story of deep delight."

- Robert Penn Warren

1905-1989

“I am only a worker employed by the Lord,

And great is my gladness and rich is my reward

If I can just spread the wonderful story

That God is the answer to eternal glory...

Bringing new hope and comfort and cheer,

Telling sad hearts there is nothing to fear,

And what greater joy can there be than to share

The love of God and the power of prayer.”

- Helen Steiner Rice

“I had always felt life was a story - and if there is a story, there is a storyteller.”

- G.K. Chesterton

"If you ever find ourself in the wrong story...leave." - Mo Willems

“A good and gracious God has numbered our days and is writing our stories.”

- Scotty Smith

Pastor of Christ Community Church, Franklin, TN

"You own everything that happens to you.
Tell your stories.
If people wanted you to write warmly about them,
they should've behaved better."

- Anne Lamot

"You've got a new story to write and it looks nothing like your past."