All of our stories end, one way or another. The stars are a reflection of the past, what you leave behind.

Behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.

The stories of unicorns are buried under myth, legend and magic but did you know that they cannot survive in a place where Love, Truth and Freedom refuse to exist?

Stories You Can Feel!

Celebrate victories. Doing so offers a pat on the back for efforts made, and a gentle assurance that we can always make another attempt at success.

Find the beauty and the stories that inspire you and those around you. They will add tremendous value to your work and everyone else's.

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.

It's hard to believe there are people that don't read books. There's so much magic in words and well told stories.

Scars have stories, so does the hero in you.

Sometimes our victories become our biggest defeats.

I started out as a reader of all genres that captivated me. It inspired me to write the stories I wanted to read.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Fed by the books my parents read aloud to me, when I was little I would wander around my yard imagining I was a bird, or a runaway princess, or a fairy; and I would make up narratives about what I did. That pastime blossomed into dictating stories to my family and teachers until I learned to write well myself. I have always loved to draw. I have never been sure which hobby I am more passionate about. Now, as I write this, I realize that I would not love drawing if I didn't make up stories in my mind about the things I draw. Both of these passions come from my need to capture what I see without destroying it, to clarify images and make them mine, and to express to the world the love I have for the things I perceive.

"I think about the Old Ones, that they have a past but no history. I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it's not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scrapbooks and tell stories. That that's how we humans find our way to immortality. This is not a new thought; I've had such thoughts before. But I have a new thought now.

Isn't it amazing how we always have to put our mark on things? And how, from the natural world, we find evidence over and over again that reminds us, not so much of the birds, but of our own stories and our own kinds of art?

Stories are the collective wisdom of everyone who has ever lived. Your job as a storyteller is not simply to entertain. Nor is it to be noticed for the way you turn a phrase. You have a very important job--one of the most important. Your job is to let people know that everyone shares their feelings--and that these feelings bind us. Your job is a healing art, and like all healers, you have a responsibility. Let people know they are not alone. You must make people understand that we are all the same.

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.

I realized that the good stories were affecting the organs of my body in various ways, and the really good ones were stimulating more than one organ. An effective story grabs your gut, tightens your throat, makes your heart race and your lungs pump, brings tears to your eyes or an explosion of laughter to your lips.

The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.

I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He never has anything funny in his stories.

Someone has to write all those stories: why not me?

One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, "As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . ." When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn't know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories.

Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.

First forget Inspirational. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspirational won't. Habit is persistence in practice.

I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant...I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS.