A Quote by Nancy Willard

Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the one who 'took it to heart.' What a pity Heaven awarded no apple to the one who wrote the story down.

Nancy Willard

Quote Topics

Apple Apples Armenian Down Fell Folklore Heart Heaven Listener Pity Story Teller Third Three Took Wrote

Quote Author

Nancy Willard
American - Novelist
Born: June 26, 1936

Story is the umbilical cord that connects us to the past, present, and future. Family. Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. . . . Story is an affirmation of our ties to one another.

Terry Tempest Williams

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

Robert Frost

I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar - if he is financially fortunate.

John Steinbeck

Through prayer you can gather the riches of heaven and bring them down to earth...you can delight in the beauty of heaven and carry it in your heart...you can enjoy the fellowship of heaven and walk in it throughout the day.

Roy Lessin

That was the best kind of story: when the teller was as much under its spell as the listener.

Nancy Farmer

A good story is alive, ever changing and growing as it meets each listener or reader in a spirited and unique encounter, while the moralistic tale is not only dead on arrival, it's already been embalmed. It's safer that way. When a lively story goes dancing out to meet the imagination of a child, the teller loses control over meaning. The child gets to decide what the story means.

Katherine Paterson

I had written a story. I wrote the story out of some desperation, really, and I didn't know I was writing a story, and it took me years. And when I finished, a friend of mine had the idea that the story should be read as a monologue in a theater.

Deborah Eisenberg

Once in 1919, when I was traveling at night by train, I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper who published the story.

Mikhail Bulgakov

I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. After the listening you become accountable for the sacred knowledge that has been shared.

Terry Tempest Williams

The fiend with all his comrades Fell then from heaven above, Through as long as three nights and days, The angels form heaven into hell; And them all the Lord transformed to devils, Because they his deed and word Would not revere.

Caedmon

Apple made tools that helped people express their creativity and Steve Jobs knew that so he told that story well. But Facebook makes tools that help people connect and Mark Zuckerberg is hardly a story-teller. Nevertheless, he's become a leader because his products do such a good job of solving a problem.

Lewis Schiff

'The Story Of A Marriage' was initially a short story I wrote, and before that, it was a family story. It was a story that a relative of mine told me about herself in the '50s, and it was a story that no one else in my family believes, and it might not be true.

Andrew Sean Greer

It is not to remain in a golden ciborium that He comes down each day from Heaven, but to find another Heaven, the Heaven of our soul in which He takes delight.

Thérèse of Lisieux

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell >From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific.