A Quote by Leslie Jamison

I really believe in people putting stories out there that contain the most difficult moments because nothing to me is more lonely making than sanitized stories or airbrushed stories that kind of allied how hard it got.
Humans are kind of story-propagating creatures. If you think of how we spend our days, think of all the time you spend on entertainment. How much of your entertainment centers around stories? Most pieces of music tell stories. Even hanging out with your friends, you talk, you tell stories to each other. They're all stories. We live in stories.
Lies are just stories, and stories are all that matter. We all tell stories. Some are more truthful than others, maybe, but in the end the only thing that counts is what you can make people believe.
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.
Most people, they get overwhelmed by the religious stories, the nationalist stories, by the economic stories of the day, and take these stories to be the reality.
I am tired of reading reviews that call A Good Man brutal and sarcastic. The stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism.... when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror.
We've all heard stories about poker players grinding it out for two days straight. Believe me; I've got stories like that of my own. But the bottom line is that these stories usually don't have great endings. That's because the mind starts playing tricks after a marathon poker session, especially after a losing session.
Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories ar for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.
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.
I don't want to play myself up as a hero, because it would make me unbelievable. I'd rather settle for people thinking that I'm a bum, but digging my stories, than liking me and not being able to believe in my stories. That's one reason I've been hard on myself, because I want my stuff to be believable.
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 try to do stories that make a difference - stories that affect the way people think, stories that people need to hear - and usually what drives me is to do stories about people who have no voice, people who have no political power, people who are overlooked by society.
I try to do stories that make a difference -- stories that affect the way people think, stories that people need to hear -- and usually what drives me is to do stories about people who have no voice, people who have no political power, people who are overlooked by society.
So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no stories, they wouldn't be human, wouldn't exist. And if my stories had been different I wouldn't be the person I am.
Digression is my passion. I love telling the main stories, but in some ways, what I love most is using those narratives as a way of stringing together the interesting stories that people have kind of forgotten, and that are kind of surprising. The problem is, how do you pare stories away so that the book doesn't become a distracting jumble of material, and readers lose focus? In my experience, there's really only one way to do that. I pack it all in with the rough draft, then count on myself and my trusted readers to tell me what's good and what's not good.
You are saying, are you not, I said to Manuelito, that stories have more room in them than ideas? [...] He laughed. That is correct, Señor. It is as if ideas are made of blocks. Rigid and hard. And stories are made of a gauze that is elastic. You can almost see through it, so what is beyond is tantalizing. You can't quite make it out; and because the imagination is always moving forward, you yourself are constantly stretching. Stories are the way spirit is exercised.
I never have people tell me their stories. I usually have to figure them out myself. Because I know that if people tell me stories, they will expect them to be remembered. And I cannot guarantee that. There is no way to know if the stories stay after I'm gone. And how devastating would it be to confide in someone and have the confidence disappear? I don't want to be responsible for that.
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