Chinua Achebe Quotes

All stories teach us something, and promise us something, whether they're true or invented, legend or fact.

Sometimes stories are inherently important whether or not they have a direct relation to your life.

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

It's often said that everybody has a story to tell, and I suppose that's true, but the problem is that most of them aren't worth telling.

I'm interested in telling stories that add up to more than the entertainment of the story. That's what does it for me.

I don't do films because they tell a particular kind of story, I do films with stories that touch me.

My personal feeling is that audiences are crying out for stories they can invest in and feel. I see a lot of big movies that leave me feeling rather numb.

When you have an important story to tell, the words you need seem to come of their own accord.

You ought to be able to discover something from your stories. If you don't, probably nobody else will.

The thing about stories is you have to pick the ones that last.

A story has to have muscle as well as meaning, and the meaning has to be in the muscle.

I know there is a moral to this story, but I don't know what it is.

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

That's the most important thing for me in TV, telling the story to as many people as we can.

If it isn't a wonderful story first, who cares how "important" it is?

The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important.

Stories are our attempts to share our values & beliefs with the hopes that we may attract those who believe what we believe. This is the basis of forming a trusting relationship. Story telling, therefor, is only worthwhile when it tells what you stand for, not what you do.

I know from my own experience as a parent that parents probably teach most powerfully not through their words but through their deeds. And my parents taught me through the stories of their lives. And I don't take any credit for the things that they did or the things that they experienced, but they made a great impression on me.

The Business story is designed to trigger the listener to take an effective action. If it doesn't, the story fails.

Suddenly, details seemed extremely important. Details were something to grab on to, a way to insert myself into the story.

My family were Russian Jews. They got you to read as soon as you could. And then assumed you would read a lot. People didn't really tell stories but they were good talkers. That's important for a writer, to hear speakers.

Probably a good idea, let me know how it ends" "I already know how it ends" "You read the ending first?" "I always read the ending before I commit to the whole book." "If you know how it ends, why read the book?" "I don't read for the ending. I read for the story".

As a reader, I don't feel a story has an obligation to make me happy. I want stories to show me a bigger world than the one I know.

We learn best - and change - from hearing stories that strike a chord within us.