Libba Bray Quotes

To connect to people at the deepest level, you need stories.

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours

You say to yourself: 'What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?' and yet I think we're all the same, anywhere. Everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.

That's the power of film. If it's good, it can somehow make you feel connected to even the farthest thing from your own experience.

Humanity has this need to hear stories because they connect us with other people, they teach us about our own feelings. We feel less lonely when we see other people going through the same things, even if they're fictional characters.

Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside?

I think everybody wants to connect. There is nothing worse than feeling disconnected. And stories that really move people and make people care are the ones where they feel some sort of connection.

It is our stories [classic Disney films] that make us human - so Owen [Suskind] has become an expert in what connects us and makes us human. That got to me, the power of these stories, and the lessons these tales give us to create the connection between us.

Then I tell my own story. The two things that people really need to transform is language to understand their experience and to know they're not alone. It's the combination of the researcher-storyteller part.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.

I tell stories about people audiences might think they have nothing in common with, then they emotionally connect with them and find they're not different at all.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

Nobody understands another's sorrow, and nobody another's joy.

Because they're my stories, they're my version of events of the past three years. But I really hope people can hear their own stories within the songs and they can become our version of events.

I love relatable stories.

I love stories about people that, whatever situation they're in, you can relate to them in a way.

Everybody goes through a lot of the same things, and I talk about those, and that's the key. You have to connect with your audience, and I might take them on a trip with me, tell them I went here and I went there and they'll go with me, you know, to hear the stories.

I guess when you write a personal story, people feel compelled to share their own stories.

It's a unique thing, and it's probably the thing I love most about songs and music - their ability to connect in a human way.

As a filmmaker, you're looking to reveal something. When other people relate to it, it makes an otherwise lonely world a little less lonely.

I love that idea that if you know someone's story, it's impossible not to love them. This is potentially hokey but incredibly true, as far as I'm concerned.

I do think that the strongest character is somebody that you can connect with to your personal self, or at least find the humanity in both of you and start from there.

Something like a 'Maheshinte Prathikaram' will work anywhere in the world because it speaks of something that is beyond language.

I'm a normal person. I'm just like you and just like everyone else - I have feelings and thoughts.