A Quote by John Green

My responsibility is to try to tell true stories. To me a true story is always hopeful, but never simply, uncomplicatedly happy. — © John Green
My responsibility is to try to tell true stories. To me a true story is always hopeful, but never simply, uncomplicatedly happy.
I gravitate to stories that I feel I can tell well, and that will have a positive affect on the viewer. That doesn't mean it always has to have a happy ending, but I always like to try to tell a story that will make people think in a new way or come to their own constructive resolution on a particular topic. Or simply, just to experience something collectively and say: "Yeah, I know how that feels".
I pitched the idea to FX that there's this larger 'Fargo' universe where there's true crime in the upper Midwest, and I can tell stories from any era of that. Maybe they connect to the first season or the movie, or maybe they don't. It's just a style of storytelling. We're under the auspices of being a true story that isn't true.
What I love about the Bible is that it's a group of stories but it's all telling one main story. It's about Jesus Christ. The story is not about me. That takes a lot of the pressure off me, but it also puts the responsibility on me to point people to who the true story is about.
What has always surprised me when I walk into a bookstore is the number of books that you can find that are written with certainty. The authors tell some story as though it's true, but they don't have any evidence that it is true!
There are a million ideas in a world of stories. Humans are storytelling animals. Everything's a story, everyone's got stories, we're perceiving stories, we're interested in stories. So to me, the big nut to crack is to how to tell a story, what's the right way to tell a particular story.
I don't think you make fans happy by just replicating frames. What they want to see is that you stayed true to the story, true to the characters and true to the design.
I have made up thousands of stories; I have filled innumerable notebooks with phrases to be used when I have found the true story, the one story to which all these phrases refer. But I have never yet found the story. And I begin to ask, Are there stories?
I learned as a really young kid, when my dad was telling me one story and my mom was telling me another that, even as a 5-year-old boy, there was no way that both of these stories are true. Something in the middle is true, and I have to figure out what it is, what the truth is, and I never did quite figure that out.
I used to say to my bubbe, 'Bubbe, is this story true?' And she'd say, 'Of course it's true! But it may not have happened.' What my bubbe was saying is profound: All stories are true. The truth is the journey you take through it - did it make you laugh, cry, seek and want justice? Then it's true.
I'm really just trying... to write what feels true to me. I don't think about a lofty responsibility. I think I'd be paralyzed by that. Like any of my male colleagues, I'm writing the stories that interest me in a way that feels true to me.
I look for the dark story, where something secret was done. I read and read and pick up the trail of a true story. I use nothing but true stories. They are so much better than phony ones.
Symbolism is alright in 'fiction,' but I tell true life stories simply about what happened to people I knew.
Overall I think that the most important thing is to have true friends, and always to stay true to yourself and never try to be somebody that you're not.
I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them.
I never try to give a message in my books. It's about living with characters long enough to hear their voices and let them tell me the story. Sometimes I would love to have a happy ending, and it doesn't happen because the character or the story leads me in another direction.
When we try to describe the truth with words, we distort it and it's no longer truth--it's our story. The story may be true for us, but that doesn't mean it's true for anyone else.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!