Meaningful Storytelling Quotes

'Heroes', 'Desperate Housewives', 'The Sopranos' - they're all very stylised. 'The Wire' is much more rooted in realism and honesty. In American television, I can't think of anything I'd rather have been in because it has got something to say and that is the kind of thing I want to do.

I like stories that begin with characters. I like to be engaged and moved by the characters in the story. I want to be moved. I want to leave the cinema and think about what I've seen. My sensibility is quite eclectic and it doesn't matter if they are small or large films, I just want to make good films.

The strength of a story is that it stays with people and it gives an opportunity for that story to connect with people where the Holy Spirit intends for it to do so.

The point of what I do is that it doesn't really matter what a book or a story is as long it moves you, informs you, challenges you, entertains you, or changes you.

If you're lucky enough to be involved in a film that's about something very real and that you hope will continue to hold up in 20 years' time it just gives you more energy and makes it feel all the more worthwhile.

I think what's important for myself and anyone else who wants to create a film, or art, is [to] make sure that they have something to say, that they want to share something important, express something important.

I just want to go on making movies, and some of them will be completely meaningless, except, of course, to me.

There's no point in making a movie just to be making a movie.

If a film isn't really talking about who we are and what our psychologies are, then we're probably not that interested in it, actually.

I don't think any of my books tell the reader anything new. But they do remind, in a time that is strident and screeching about the limitations of this world and all the trouble we can get ourselves into.

Occasionally, you'll get a 'District 9,' a film that is politically charged, but there is nothing going on beneath the surface with a lot of horror films. They are not about anything.

I think it was simply word of mouth that made it a New York Times bestseller for more than 60 weeks, over a year. People being moved and changed and transformed by the book [ One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are] and wanting to share that with hurting people all around them.

If I made an album just to sell you a story about how I'm the man, it really doesn't show any human side to me. It's good to talk about what's real and what's relevant.

While I think love is a beautiful emotion, I can't make simple love stories any more. In the time that I have, I would like to make films about things that move and bother me.

Additionally, Liesl and Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic--not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying. (From the "Author's Note" at the end).

At the end of the day, it's nice to walk away from a set knowing that you're doing a movie that is not just for money and is not just pure entertainment.

You imagine a reader and try to keep the reader interested. That's storytelling. You also hope to reward the reader with a sense of a completed design, that somebody is in charge, and that while life is pointless, the book isn't pointless. The author knows where he is going. That's form.

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

Fiction has a unique role in conveying Truth. In fact, only fiction that is Truth with a capital T is worthwhile.

It is my first preference to do films with social significance. Art cinema has given me credibility and status as an actor, but commercial cinema has given me a comfortable living.

Things have to touch me as a human being. I do films that touch my heart.

I'm open to any project, but my joyful projects are those through which I can say something and through which I can speak to the an audience of people in the world, and I can be that vehicle through which something can be said, I find that entirely thrilling and joyful.

Anyone can have a once-upon-a-time or a happily-ever-after, but it's the journey between that makes the story worth telling.

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.

I write because something inner and unconscious forces me to. That is the first compulsion. The second is one of ethical and moral duty. I feel responsible to tell stories that inspire readers to consider more deeply who they are.