Robert Bringhurst Quotes

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

Nature is a book, a letter, a fairy tale (in the philosophical sense) or whatever you want to call it.

It's always interesting just to see how the human mind is relating to the natural universe, and what we try to make of it just so we can believe we understand what's going on.

I do love mythology.

A myth is far truer than a history, for a history only gives a story of the shadows, whereas a myth gives a story of the substances that cast the shadows.

A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.

I think the Christ-myth stories make great stories, whether it's 'The Matrix' or 'Braveheart,' they all are tapping into some kind of deep myth in our DNA, and by myth I don't necessarily mean false.

Myths are fun, as long as you don't confuse them with the truth.

There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe: (1) the world as a unity dependent on humanity; (2) the world as a reality independent of the human factor.

That's the great thing about rock n' roll: the myth is ultimately more important than the reality. And that's what you learn - you just learn to go with the mythology.

He who has no sympathy with myths has no sympathy with men.

There are many modes of thinking about the world around us and our place in it. I like to consider all the angles from which we might gain perspective on our amazing universe and the nature of existence.

There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.

Myth is nothing more than ancient gossip.

Behind every myth lies a truth; beyond every legend is reality, as radiant (sometimes as chilling) as the story itself.

Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.

(I am) dealing not with the particular anecdote, but rather with the Spirit of Myth, which is generic to all myths at all times.

Whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.

Mankind have been slow to believe that order reigns in the universe-that the world is a cosmos and a chaos.

People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell.

The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.

They [Fairy Tales] are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor. People used to understand metaphor better than I think we do now. But these stories are so potent, they refuse to die.

Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life--birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science. In attempting to do this, creationists have missed the significance, meaning, and sublime nature of myths. They took a beautiful story of creation and re-creation and ruined it.