50 Story Telling Quotes To Rewrite Your Narrative

These storytelling quotes are exactly what you need!

Whether you are writing a story, writing your story, or looking for insight into the power of storytelling, if you are here, you probably enjoy a good story!

Storytelling is one aspect of life that makes us human.

Tell us your favorite storytelling quote in the comment section below.

What are the benefits of reading these storytelling quotes?

It is what separates us from other forms of life on planet earth.

We can use our imaginations to create brand-new stories as easily as we can use our memories to retell the stories that shape our world.

One thing all stories have in common is a story arc.

A story arc is like a framework.

It is the chronological construction of the plot of the story.

A story arc includes:

• an introduction
• a rising action
• a climax
• a falling action
• a resolution

Both amateur and master storytellers use this basic framework to create our favorite stories

Short storytelling quotes

1. “Storytelling is what lights my fire.” ― Hope Davis

2. “Storytelling is the important thing.” ― Vincent Kartheiser

3. “I don’t consider what I do ‘art.’ It’s ‘storytelling.’” ― Brian Stelfreeze

4. “The natural milieu I inhabit is more in epic storytelling.” ― Terry Hayes

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5. “The storytelling gift is innate: one has it, or one doesn’t.” ― Donna Tartt

6. “Storytelling and elegant style don’t always go hand in hand.” ― Donna Tartt

7. “Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.” ― Ajay Naidu

8. “I’ve always said I have one skill. That skill – if I have it at all – is storytelling.” ― Mitch Albom

9. “I think that instinct, that storytelling instinct, rescued me most of my life.” ― Armistead Maupin

10. “I am really interested in storytelling, in general, nothing is off-limits!” ― Brianna Hildebrand

The importance of storytelling quotes

11. “Telling stories and having them received is so important.” ― Kathi Appelt

12. “What separates us as human beings is our ability to hold stories.” ― Kathi Appelt

13. “Our narrative history. There is so much power in that. Storytelling is our human industry.” ― Kathi Appelt

14. “You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built in the human plan. We come with it.” ― Margaret Atwood

15. “Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe.” ― Russell Banks

16. “The single thing all women need in the world is inspiration, and inspiration comes from storytelling.” ― Zainab Salbi

17. “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” ― Brandon Sanderson

18. “Surely, the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It’s a paradox that’s at the heart of any kind of storytelling.” ― Jeremy Northam

19. “The history of storytelling isn’t one of simply entertaining the masses but of also advising, instructing, challenging the status quo.” ― Therese Fowler

20. “Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution—more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.” ― Lisa Cron

Storytelling quotes about what makes a story

21. “That’s the nature of storytelling, if you want to reflect the real world.” ― Carl Hiaasen

22. “I’m writing my story so that others might see fragments of themselves.” ― Lena Waithe

23. “I’m obsessed with giving the audience something they don’t see coming.” ― Jordan Peele

24. “It was unpredictable, good storytelling that brought you back each week.” ― Ted Shackelford

25. “We like mature storytelling. We like dramatic storytelling. We like intense storytelling.” ― Anthony Russo

26. “The best way to bring people in and have them empathize with others is through storytelling.” ― Lee Unkrich

27. “What I want to write about has changed somewhat, and the scope of the storytelling has changed accordingly.” ― Terry Brooks

28. “Leaping away from my mistakes has propelled me forward. It has great force behind it. It makes for great storytelling.” ― Holly Near

29. “Because storytelling, and visual storytelling, was put in the hands of everybody, and we have all now become storytellers.” ― LeVar Burton

30. “All the Indigenous paintings throughout history, they were always a bird’s eye view. It’s the Indigenous way of storytelling.” ― Aaron Pedersen

The art of storytelling quotes

31. “Authors do not choose a story to write. The story chooses us.” ― Richard P. Denney

32. “Artists should always think of themselves as cosmic instruments for storytelling.” ― Ted Lange

33. “That’s what we have with the Old Testament and the New Testament: good storytelling.” ― Naveen Andrews

34. “The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.” ― Walter Benjamin

35. “The nature of storytelling, since the dawn of man, has a beginning, a middle, and an end.” ― Matthew Gray Gubler

36. “Well, I suppose I’m interested in ways of storytelling and in stories that are about storytelling.” ― Neil Jordan

37. “I believe the adventure game genre will never die any more than any type of storytelling would ever die.” ― Roberta Williams

38. “I believe that interactive storytelling can be what cinema was in the 20th century: an art that deeply changes its time.” ― David Cage

39. “A lot of storytelling… you’re a bit hypnotized by it, and things just come out in certain ways, and you look at it and try to gather it.” ― Owen King

40. “Whenever I’m asked what advice I have for young writers, I always say that the first thing is to read, and to read a lot. The second thing is to write. And the third thing, which I think is absolutely vital, is to tell stories and listen closely to the stories you’re being told.” ― John Green

More storytelling quotes to inspire your own story

41. “The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.” ― Zadie Smith

42. “Things in life have no real beginning, though our stories about them always do.” ― Colum McCann

43. “I come from a big family where we tell big stories. All we had was the storytelling.” ― Maverick Carter

44. “I’ll tell you a secret. Old storytellers never die. They disappear into their own story.” ― Vera Nazarian

45. “I grew up in a storytelling culture, a tribal culture, but also in an American storytelling culture.” ― Sherman Alexie

46. “My interest in theatre and storytelling began in my mother’s kitchen. It was a meeting place for my mother’s large circle of friends.” ― Lynn Nottage

47. “Storytelling wasn’t about making things up. It was more like inviting the stories to come through her, let themselves be told.” ― Jennifer McMahon

48. “Most young people haven’t used their storytelling skills since they were 8 or 9 or 10 and wanted to persuade Mom and Dad to take them to the ball game.” ― Peter Guber

49. “I could not stop talking because now I had started my story. It wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.” ― Chris Cleave

50. “This is our story to tell. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the storytelling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever.” ― Jandy Nelson

What does storytelling mean to you?

We all have favorite stories.

In our youth, stories are used to impart valuable lessons that we can remember.

If you think about your favorite stories, you notice you might not always remember every exact detail correctly, but you can hold on to the lesson or moral of the story.

Storytelling is one of the oldest and most powerful forms of human expression.

It is how many civilizations carry and pass on knowledge and memory.

In fact, before humans had written communication, storytelling is how they shared knowledge from person to person.

Often, the stories we are told are the foundation on which we create our identities.

It is natural for human beings to base their worldview and their self-worth on the stories they believe about themselves and their community.

What makes our stories so amazing is that it is never too late to rewrite yours!

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