"The San Francisco therapist kept telling me I shouldn't be terrified of creative experimentation.

In writing. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was "terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, "Please will you do my job for me.

A story is alive, as you and I are. It is rounded by muscle and sinew. Rushed with blood. Layered with skin, both rough and smooth. At its core lies soft marrow of hard, white bone. A story beats with the heart of every person who has ever strained ears to listen. On the breath of the storyteller, it soars. Until its images and deeds become so real you can see them in the air, shimmering like oases on the horizon line. A story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Linger like perfume in the nose. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same.

A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No--that is a thought which comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little tale, a very little tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a tale which he is not acquainted with, and can only find out what it is by listening as it goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on and on till it spreads itself into a book. I know about this, because it has happened to me so many times.

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

I decided to stop telling the stories where I was the victim and start telling the stories where I was the hero.

When a man's dreams live past the horizon of the sea, his soul dies a little each day he spends upon land and each mile he moves farther inland until ultimately one day he is nothing but a shell, empty and dead inside. Like a shell, you can hear the sound of the ocean if you hold it close enough to your ear and truly listen. In the sound of the ocean, you can find a man's purpose and in his purpose you will find the meaning of his life. If you love this man, you'll bring him back to the sea and set him free. If you greedily wish to showcase this man like a trophy on your windowsill, he may shine for you at times. Perhaps even your friends will comment how wonderful he is, but trust that a storm is brewing within. Each one of his stares into the distance is foretelling of a voyage of freedom to come. When this storm ultimately hits, it will take all that you have to survive and more likely than not, you'll be separated in its gales.

In singing our song, in telling our story, in inviting you to say 'Hey, listen to me, and i'll listen to you', we're starting a dialogue. And when you do that, this healing happens, and we come out of our corners, and we start to witness each other's common humanity. We start to assert it. And when we do that, really good things happen

I recommend no one ever say, "I will do X, or die trying." The Universe will take your maxim as a challenge. It will delight in testing to see just how serious you really are. And if you keep telling yourself, "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger," your trials will never end.

Show people who they can be. Instead of telling them who they shouldn't be.

when a truthful person tells you their story, it is the only story they have to tell-if you were to challenge their version of events, they will not change the story. They may provide additional information, true, but said information will not conflict with their core story. If you continue to push that person, insinuating they are not telling the truth, they will become angry. Because a truthful person has no place else to go. Their story is the only one they have to tell.

If even God is referred to by using the number, why don't you think that your birthdate and numerical values of the letters that build your name up are also telling you something?

re: cutting glass..."You have to be in command of the glass, telling it where to release its hold on itself. Just like life. Otherwise it will splinter.

Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn't enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where that's not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the truth about her childhood, about the experiences she had in Oxford, and that is what saves her. True experience, not fantasy - reality, not lies - is what saves us in the end.

So it is that God tugs at a pilgrim's sleeve telling him to remember that he is only human. He must be his own man, remain in exile, and belong to himself. He must pay attention to his own feelings and to the meaning of what he does, if he is to be for himself, and yet for others as well.

But while my inner voice was clearly telling me I was at my core an entrepreneur, it's inconvenient to decide at twenty-three that you can't really work for other people.

Nobody wants a sales pitch. So instead of trying a hard sell, focus on telling a story that captivates your audience by painting a vivid picture of your vision. When you get good at storytelling, people want to be part of that story, and they'll want to help others become part of that story too.

Hearing Hollywood liberals trying to deter people from climbing the capitalistic ladder of success is like listening to a group of drunks telling people not to drink.

Telling a lie to justify the truth or telling a lie about certain truthful event, because you want to be convincing. Makes the truth a lie and makes the truth questionable, unbelievable and unreliable.

"Since beginningless time and into the never-ending future, men have loved women without telling them, and the Lord has loved them without telling, and the void is not the void because there's nothing to be empty of.

Sometimes we get punished even for being honest and telling the truth.

We must avoid telling ourselves that we are forever committed to the trajectory of our thoughts and feelings today.

I was left with a scar. I think telling stories is a way of putting a scar into words. Since not all blows or falls leave marks, the words are there, ready to be put together in different ways, anywhere, anytime, in response to any fall, however serious or slight.