Nancy Duarte Quotes

If you read the first page of one of my novels, I can guarantee that you will read the last one. This isn't just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.

There's no harmony in most people in a way, and I'm attracted to it, and I think it makes for good storytelling.

Suspense films are often based on communication problems, and that affects all of the plot points. It almost gives it kind of a fable feeling.

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

The greater the darkness, the better the drama.

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

Your job is to give people a reason to keep reading.

Anecdotes are sometimes the best vehicles of truth, and if striking and appropriate are often more impressive and powerful than argument.

People are interested if you tell stories well and relevantly.

You know when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea: have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!

Honesty is not necessarily interesting. I don't want to hear about your dreams or your acid trips, probably unless you make them really interesting.

Story is morally neutral. It can express profound truth or propaganda. The two greatest political storytellers of the 20th Century were Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler. Because storytelling is a form of persuasive jujitsu, and because world is full of black belt storytellers, the corporate leader has to train both his offensive and defensive moves

Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the hearts and minds of others are never captured.

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.

Bill Pearson is definitely a man to talk to, especially in the afternoon when he's had a couple of drinks because he's got so many stories and anecdotes.

One of the most intriguing things in management and in business is the role of storytelling - people need the anecdotes to do the work that they do.

In a sea of stories, find the right one to tell, and the right way to tell it.

Tell them stories. They need the truth you must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories.

Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.

Contrast is the dramatist's method.

Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.

Stories are the reproductive organs of language.

Great short stories and great jokes have a lot in common. Both depend on what communication-theorists sometimes called "exformation," which is a certain quantity of vital information removed from but evoked by a communication in such a way as to cause a kind of explosion of associative connections within the recipient.

All you need to know about plotting is twofold. 1. Give your characters goals. 2. Don't let them reach those goals.

You have to know the story that you're telling, and you have to know the tone in which the story is being told.