Daniel Day-Lewis Quotes

It's one thing to narrate a story and another thing to execute it.

That's a very real feeling - that I don't have a story to tell. I'm not a pure storyteller. I have a tough time with story.

I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.

Stories in themselves are not automatically good; it has to be the right kind of story told by the right kind of person.

I notice a lot of younger artists have difficulty telling stories. They might have short stories where they express themselves well, but they don't really know how to tell stories with characters. That craft just passed them by.

A good story needs only a good storyteller.

It's a director's job to tell a story and he's very well versed in telling stories with a bit of comedy in them and keeping the pace of the movie right and that's exactly what he did. He was observant of a world he didn't understand but he told a wonderful story.

I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then... it's sort of like taking the training wheels off, trying to write a book that's fun in the same way without relying on quite such mechanical or external beats.

Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too.

I don't think I'm the right man to adapt a book.

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

Everybody's got one killer story. It doesn't take talent to tell that story, it just takes experience.

The key is to work with people who are passionate about storytelling and who have a similar sensibility of the type and nature of the stories that you want to tell.

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.

Don't ever let the other stuff get in the way of your inherent skills as a kick-butt storyteller. Move the reader, make them happy and sad and excited and scared. Make them stare into space after they've put the book down, thinking about the tale that's become a part of them.

How many times can you put together 26 different stories without running out?

I'm actually quite critical of the storytelling theme. I think all the storytellers are not storytellers.

You may not know it now, if you studied communications or engineering, law or medicine, business or classics: you're a storyteller, too.

Ron Howard is a great filmmaker and also a great storyteller in 60- and 30-minute shows, so why isn't he going to be a great storyteller in 10-minute pieces?

A great story poorly told doesn't do anybody any good at all, and nobody wants to hear it, and nobody wants to read it. The craft of it is really more important than the subject matter.

I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from the day I was born.

Ever since I was introduced to Ekta Kapoor, I have learnt a great deal from her storytelling, and the learning continues.

I think that when I'm telling a story, I'm doing the best I can to tell the story as fully as I can, and if there are various fractures that happen in the story, then that's just the very thing that the story is as opposed to my looking for avenues of difference in one story. They just really do exist. For me, anyway.

I don't just look at things as an actor. I've also written several films, so I look at it as a storyteller and I know if something worked and should have been in there for the benefit of the story and the benefit of the character.

People are interested if you tell stories well and relevantly.