A Quote by Bonnie Jo Campbell

I always know exactly where my stories take place, which gives me something certain so I can use my imagination for the other stuff. I worry though, who wants to keep reading stories about Kalamazoo?

Bonnie Jo Campbell

Quote Topics

Imagination About Always Certain Exactly Gives Kalamazoo Keep Know Me My Imagination Other Place Reading Reading Stories Something Stories Stuff Take Though Use Wants Which Worry

Quote Author

Bonnie Jo Campbell
American - Novelist
Born: 1962

My being Indian is possibly the biggest thing that influences my stories. Not just in terms of settings - most of the settings in my stories are Indian - but also in terms of characters and plot. I think growing up in India grew my imagination in certain ways that would not have happened in any other place. I'm also fascinated by the idea of India, and writing stories allows me to explore this. As for thematic elements, they are probably pretty obvious in my stories. I also hope that my stories bust stereotypes at least to a modest extent.

Vandana Singh

I believe that if a child has a feel for writing and wants to write, there is an audience. Children should just dive in and go at it. I would encourage children to write about themselves and things that are happening to them. It is a lot easier and they know the subject better if they use something out of their everyday lives as an inspiration. Read stories, listen to stories, to develop an understanding of what stories are all about.

Jean Craighead George

I was reading stories by Raymond Carver and some of his stuff sort of ended abruptly here and there, where in other short stories that I've read have a bit of an ending, a climax, a twist or something like that.

Limmy

I don't necessarily think stories have functions any more than diamonds have functions, or the sky has a function... Stories exist. They keep us sane, I think. We tell each other stories, we believe stories. I love watching the slow rise of the urban legend. They're the stories that we use to explain ourselves to ourselves.

Neil Gaiman

I've always loved comic books. As a kid, I used to read cowboy stories and historical comics about other worlds, unknown places that would take me out of myself and which helped to develop my imagination.

James Herbert

I like newspaper stories that are incomplete, that give me room to imagine the rest. It's no good to me reading about something that's all neatly solved and wrapped up. That's why so many of my stories revolve around human psychology, around why someone commits a certain crime, or series of crimes. I don't profess to know the answers but I like to explore the possibilities.

Peter Robinson

Each of us is comprised of stories, stories not only about ourselves but stories about ancestors we never knew and people we've never met. We have stories we love to tell and stories we have never told anyone. The extent to which others know us is determined by the stories we choose to share. We extend a deep trust to someone when we say, "I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone." Sharing stories creates trust because through stories we come to a recognition of how much we have in common.

Julius Lester

There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.

Mavis Gallant

I'm attracted to stories that excite my imagination, stories that, as I'm reading the script, I feel it, I can see it, I can hear the characters. I'm attracted to characters that are real, that tap into something inside me that I haven't explored yet.

Tatiana Maslany

As an activist, you do find yourself directed more toward public action. But I've always tried to use stories from my own life in my writing for instance. It has always been clear to me that the stories of each other's lives are our best textbooks. Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences. So, if we've shared many experiences, then it probably has something to do with power or politics, and if we unify and act together, then we can make a change.

Gloria Steinem

I feel like in the reading I did when I was growing up, and also in the way that people talk and tell stories here in the South, they use a lot of figurative language. The stories that I heard when I was growing up, and the stories that I read, taught me to use the kind of language that I do. It's hard for me to work against that when I am writing.

Jesmyn Ward

Stories have inspired me all my life. I like reading about what other people have done and it inspires me to share my own stories, and encourage people to make their own life stories.

Phil Keoghan

AS SOMBRAS DA ALMA. THE SHADOWS OF THE SOUL. The stories others tell about you and the stories you tell about yourself: which come closer to the truth? Is it so clear that they are your own? Is one an authority on oneself? But that isn't the question that concerns me. The real question is: In such stories, is there really a difference between true and false? In stories about the outside, surely. But when we set out to understand someone on the inside? Is that a trip that ever comes to an end? Is the soul a place of facts? Or are the alleged facts only the deceptive shadows of our stories?

Pascal Mercier

Here's the weird thing about me. I was never one to tell you stories about me. I was always the guy who others told stories about. I was like that up until I was 35 years old. And then I started telling stories about me onstage.

Bert Kreischer

As an activist, you do find yourself directed more toward public action. But I've always tried to use stories from my own life in my writing. It has always been clear to me that the stories of each other's lives are our best textbooks.

Gloria Steinem

I'm always reading. And I keep a whole list of stories, often unusual stories. There are a hundred some-odd ideas on that list.