Suspense is very important. Even though this is humor and they're short stories, that theory of building suspense is still there.

Comedy used to be a vehicle for change. Now, comedy has gotten to this quirky, nonsensical place, which I enjoy. But I do think there is room for discussion-based humor. We can tell those stories in a way that feels edifying.

My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.

Every place has a story - or a thousand stories. Findery brings places to life, be they where you stand or where you hope to go.

People across the world are yearning to be connected to stories of hope.

I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.

In one sense, the stories I read betrayed me. Too few gave me back my mirror image. Fewer still spoke to, or acknowledged, the existence of the problems I faced as a black foster child from a dysfunctional and badly broken home.

I'll be in Los Angeles for two weeks and I'll have a laugh, get battered and have a buzz, but at the end of the day, I'll go home. It's just me earning a few more stories to tell everyone at home and all.

I often feel like an outsider wherever I go, so I'm always attracted to stories about identity and the meaning of home.

We need to encourage black women to know that they are authors of their own destiny, that they have important stories to tell, and that they are capable, so magically capable, of writing them and creating important pieces of work that will live forever in history.

I've done some analysis of the biblical stories as part of my psychological work. I knew that I had more to do, and every time I've done it, it's been extremely valuable. It makes me a better teacher because I have a richer understanding of cultural history.

In our culture, many of us idealize love. We see it as some lofty cure-all for all of life's problems. Our movies and our stories and our history all celebrate it as life's ultimate goal, the final solution for all of our pain and struggle. And because we idealize love, we overestimate it. As a result, our relationships pay a price.

I like stories in specific time periods. 'The Revenant's' era of American history was fascinating because it was this lawless no-man's land. It defined the idea of the American frontiersman as man conquering nature. In a way, the story of Hugh Glass is about man dominating nature.

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.

We must begin to tell black women's stories because, without them, we cannot tell the story of black men, white men, white women, or anyone else in this country. The story of black women is critical because those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.

Telling stories and having them received is so important. That dialogue is everything. I tell my students all the time that what separates us as human beings is our ability to hold stories. Our narrative history. There is so much power in that. Storytelling is our human industry.

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

I have healed myself through sharing my birth story as well as others' stories in my film 'No Woman, No Cry,' and in various writings and talks about maternal health.

The problem with the stigma around mental health is really about the stories that we tell ourselves as a society. What is normal? That's just a story that we tell ourselves.

Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health.

My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.

I don't know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It's also changing how we're telling stories.

Having read the histories of other countries, I saw that expansion was everything, and that the world's surface being limited, the great object of present humanity should be to take as much of the world as it possibly could.

After graduation, I wanted to work for 'Sassy', which I loved, but it had folded. So I wound up at 'Seventeen' for three years on staff and two as a contributor, and I wrote these great stories that nobody ever believes 'Seventeen' does. Serious stories for teens about social justice issues - gun control, migrant farm workers.