A Quote by Jane Yolen
Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the fact that some people survived even as most people died. And can remind us that the swallows still sing around the smokestacks.
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The secret message communicated to most young people today by the society around them is that they are not needed, that the society will run itself quite nicely until they - at some distant point in the future - will take over the reigns. Yet the fact is that the society is not running itself nicely... because the rest of us need all the energy, brains, imagination and talent that young people can bring to bear down on our difficulties. For society to attempt to solve its desperate problems without the full participation of even very young people is imbecile.
I don't think I've ever quite grown out of it, actually. There was a point where I could recite some of those Elvish verses - which I've mercifully forgotten. But I can still, if really pushed, recite the text of the inside of the ruling ring in the language of Mordor.
Tell a man what he may not sing and he is still half free; even all free, if he never wanted to sing it. But tell him what he must sing, take up his time with it so that his true voice cannot sound even in secret -- there, I have seen is slavery.
Secrets can remind us of the countless human dramas, of frailty and heroism playing out silently in the lives of people all around us.
A house built on granite and strong foundations, not even the onslaught of pouring rain, gushing torrents and strong winds will be able to pull down. Some people have written the story of my life representing as truth what in fact derives from ignorance, error or envy; but they cannot shake the truth from its place, even if they attempt to make others believe it.
You start to stress yourself out about the people around you. You start to think, like, "What do you really want from me?" And then you forget that you, at some point, asked them for something. At some point you needed them to take you in because you ain't had nowhere to go. And now you turn around and question their loyalty to you, and those were the only people loyal to you. The only people that really loved you are still there, and you tanked on them. I'll never let that happen.
In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
Though women may appear equal in some ways, and though we definitely have accomplished a lot, the fact is one in one women will still experience sexual violence at some point in their lives; a mere 17 percent of the U.S. Senate is female; women still only make 77 cents for every man's dollar - and that's not even taking into consideration global issues like sex trafficking or honor killings. We still need feminism, it's just not as easy for people - especially people in an incredibly privileged country like America - to always see that.
Now, the relationship the storyteller has with the audience is a much higher quality relationship. You treat them with a lot more intelligence because the truth is that it's not my fault if you don't know what's going on. There are plenty of ways for you to find out. You can talk to all kinds of people, and you've got access to all this information. The onus is no longer on us, as a storyteller, to tell you. You can go out and find out yourself.
I think being self-referential is really narcissistic. Who's to say anybody's even thinking of you that much? But some of these movies that I've done, people still recite lines to me, even 20 years later.
There are stories that are true, in which each individual's tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it to deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others' pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to.
Some people are still not into us. That makes sense. We haven't really done a lot of press. We haven't put ourselves out there in ways that a lot of people would know we are still around. Unless you tour or record, they don't know you are around.
Well I'm not a storyteller, as far as telling stories which relate to experiences in my own life. That's not what I do. I write songs which have a narrative and attempt to make sense and tell a story - sure! But whenever I hear the word "storyteller" I think of a children's musician.
The Internet is allowing for us to really experience people in some of the most distant places in the world - as other people just like us. So get to know people, seek out bloggers from a country you're kind of curious about. It's about building empathy and breaking through to the point of recognizing people as people.
Some people still make promises and keep those they make. When they do, they help make life around them more stably human.
Life attacks us like a blind beast. It swallows up time, the years of our life, it passes like a typhoon and leaves nothing behind. Not even memory, because memory is made of the same swift, ungraspable substance out of which illusions emerge and then disappear.
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