Olga Tokarczuk Quotes

People need a narrative, and if there isn't one on offer, they make one up.

Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.

The world ultimately is what we say it is.

Those who tell the stories rule society.

People want real-life stories.

By the sheer act of writing, we are trying to place value on the stories that we're invested in.

We think that - as kids, you know - that kids make up stories and live in a sort of fictional place, but that, as grown-ups, we tell the truth and live in fact. But, of course, the reality is we take the facts that we know, and then we fill in all the blanks.

We learn so much about the world by what we take in through movies and TV and books - we learn who's worthy of having their story told.

...What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.

I think that people create the world that they live in. Your existence is very subjective, and you tell stories and organize the world outside of you into these stories to help you understand it.

Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created.

Everything is a tale, Martin. What we believe, what we know, what we remember, even what we dream. Everything is a story, a narrative, a sequence of events with characters communicating an emotional content. We only accept as true what can be narrated.

I came from a family where, you know, we sat down at the table every night, and you better have a story to tell. My father never wrote his stories down. And you know, I learned that they went farther if you wrote them down.

I wanted to hold onto and exploit the power of narrative. This is not only a book about a great storyteller, but there have to be stories about the storyteller.

Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.

The media doesn't create narratives, really. They're not that powerful. What they do is they tap into narratives that are already bubbling amongst their viewership or readership.

I really do think of it in moral terms. I think that we can't kid ourselves that the storytelling impulse is innocent and does nothing but bring good to the world.

There's this amplification that happens anytime you tell a story. You let it go out into the world. It's the most beautiful thing. All I can do is look at it in wonder and amazement.

The world is a fabric we weave daily on the great looms of information, discussions, films, books, gossip, little anecdotes.

I am first and foremost a storyteller; I want to tell a good story, and I want it to mean something - something that I think is important.

If you tell a story that's only allegory, then it doesn't help you at all. If it doesn't bring some emotional charge, then it's just talking about something.

It's become a cliche to say that a piece of drama is about 'the nature of truth.' But 'Rectify' so openly plays with the slippery nature of memory that the label directly applies.

Stories are really important to people and can really change the way they understand, and even live, their lives. As such, I don't agree much with people who say, 'Calm down, it's just a story.'

What I've always been most interested in is exposing the way stories and fantasies reconstitute our everyday reality. What appears to be non-fiction is not only totally mysterious, unfathomable, and strange when you really look at what it is.

Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one kind or another.