Dale Carnegie Quotes

My job, and that's my job, is to dress the naked truth. To make it interesting, to make it viable, to make it seem like something you understand and feel and love.

The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story.... Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction.

One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.

Make the important interesting.

He who would tell divers tales must know how to vary the tune.

History should be written so that someone wants to read it

The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what your saying, and they can't know what you've saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting until you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.

For me, the first thing is to tell a good story.

People are interested if you tell stories well and relevantly.

The thing is, with writing, it's form or content. You need to write about something interesting or you need to write about it in an interesting way.

When a good writer is having fun, the audience is almost always having fun too.

To be a storyteller is to be able to speak truth, to be able to use your imagination, to use the creative gifts that the Creator has given you.

Who has time to make up stories when the truth is so much more interesting?

I think a story is an attention grabber. I think it's a truth conveyor. Those are two great features of a good story.

Prose talent depends on having something to say and an interesting, highly developed way of saying it.

If you can take it to the next level and really tell an interesting story in a unique and fresh way, then I feel like that's a great song.

If prose can cast a spell, we will listen to it no matter what it's saying. If a narrative uses language in a magical and enlivening way, we will listen to the story. But if the language doesn't cast a spell, we will listen to it only if it is telling us something that actually happened.

It's not knowing how to write that makes you interesting, it's what you write.

My job is to show and tell. If I get better at showing and telling then presumably I get hired more.

A witty illustration or an apt story will accomplish more than columns of argument.

I prefer things that are private, so I love recording and I love making films, as a filmmaker, because it uses every bit of what you have experienced or know, whether it's graphics composition, decorating, psychology, storytelling, or whatever it is. It's a wonderful thing.

Writing good dialogue is art as well as craft.

Sometimes if you've got a story that's interesting enough, you don't need to pour sugar on ice cream. The ice cream is great.

When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.

I try to find stories that I would think that everyone would find interesting, and just a good entertaining story, and then if I can find a story that has a raison d'etre behind it that I feel is important then that's the best for me.