A Quote by William Kittredge
Don't worry about meaning. If a story's any good, it can't help but have meaning. Let the PhDs tell you what your story means.
Related Quotes
A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.
I don't want to tell what the songs are about for me, because then people can't decide for themselves, which is why I write; it's for you to find your own meaning in. For me it's my story, for someone else it's theirs; if I tell exactly what it means, then it's only my story.
Only meaning can make a difference and we all know there's no meaning. All stories express a desire for meaning, not meaning itself. Therefore any difference knowing the story makes is a delusion.
I think that people have to have a story. When you tell a story, most people are not good storytellers because they think it's about them. You have to make your story, whatever story it is you're telling, their story. So you have to get good at telling a story so they can identify themselves in your story.
The old story is a story of measurement. And the New Story is to bring measurement and meaning together. You cannot measure meaning.
The writer's job, after all, is not to dictate meaning, but to give the reader enough pieces to create his or her own satisfying meaning. The story is truly finished—and meaning is made—not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters the story and fills that little ambiguous space, completing the circuit, letting the power flow through.
The best time to tell your story is when you have to tell your story. When it's not really a choice. But then, when you get that first, messy, complicated version down, you have to read it over and be very tough on yourself and ask, 'Well what's the story here?' If you're lucky enough to have someone you trust looking over your shoulder, he or she can help you if [you] lack perspective on your own story.
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.
Recognize that whether you are worthy or not is all a made-up 'story'...Nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it...There's no one who comes around and stamps you 'worthy' or 'unworthy'. You do that. You make it up. You decide it...If you say you're worthy, you are. If you say you're not worthy, you're not. Either way you will live into your story.
A story is open-ended. A story invites you into it to make your own meaning.
One thing that's really pulled me in to helping artists create their album is that I get to help them tell a story. It's about the way you frame that story and finding the best way to tell that story.
Early on, a story's meaning and rationale seem pretty obvious, but then, as I write it, I realize that I know the meaning/rationale too well, which means that the reader will also know it - and so things have to be ramped up.
Because the meaning of a story does not lie on its surface, visible and self-defining, does not mean that meaning does not exist. Indeed, the ambiguity of meaning, its inner private quality, may well be part of the writer's vision.
The great thing about a song is that no one has to know your story. But if you tell it in a way that has clarity and means something to somebody else, then it can apply to their story.
The idea that a story has to be 'exceptional' in order to be worth telling is curious to me. What if we looked at every single person's story as a site of possibly infinite meaning? What if we came to believe that there isn't hubris or narcissism in thinking your story might be worth sharing - only a sense of curiosity and offering?
Good story' means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this is your lonely task...But the love of a good story, of terrific characters and a world driven by your passion, courage, and creative gifts is still not enough. Your goal must be a good story well told.
Related Authors
Ayn Rand Quotes
Russian
Writer
C. S. Lewis Quotes
British
Writer
Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes
French
Writer
Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes
English
Writer
H. L. Mencken Quotes
American
Writer
Haruki Murakami Quotes
Japanese
Writer
Kurt Vonnegut Quotes
American
Writer
Leo Tolstoy Quotes
Russian
Writer
Mark Twain Quotes
American
Writer
Mason Cooley Quotes
American
Writer
Ray Bradbury Quotes
American
Writer
Samuel Johnson Quotes
English
Writer
Seth Godin Quotes
American
Writer
Sherrilyn Kenyon Quotes
American
Writer
Suzanne Collins Quotes
American
Writer