.. We would be foolish to say of Miss Moss, for example, that the words female and store owner and tall and thirtyish and kindly an unmarried describe much of real substance about her, isn't that so? A great deal of who she really is are stories we do not know, stories she may or may not share, stories perhaps even she does not know the meaning and shape of quite yet. People are stories aren't they? And their stories keep changing and opening and closing and braiding and weaving and stitching and slamming to a halt and finding new doors and windows through which to tell themselves, isn't that so? Isn't that what happens to you all the time? It used to be when you were little that other people told you stories about yourself and where you came from, but then you begin to tell your own story, and you find that your story keeps changing in thrilling and painful ways and it's never in one place. Maybe each of us is a sort of village with lots of different beings living together under one head of hair, around the river of your pulse, the crossroads of who you were and who you wish to be. . Brian Doyle
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  1. There are many different stories to tell. It's never the same. Every day weather blows in and out, alters the surface. Sometimes it is stripped down to a single essential truth, the thing that is always believed, no matter what. The seeds from which the... - Helen Humphreys
  2. All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel. All of them? Sure, he says. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves,... - Margaret Atwood
  3. It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too... - Margaret Atwood
  4. Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written. - Jonathan Safran Foer
  5. Why write stories? To join the conversation. - Dorothy Allison
More Quotes By Brian Doyle
  1. Edward believes that all religions are cousins at heart and begin in the right spirit but then they are corrupted by the desire for power.
  2. You cannot edit your life, and even if I was today offered the chance to never meet her, and so not leave the city I loved, I would decline, for life is a verb, life swerves and lurches no matter how cautious and careful your...
  3. But we [writers] are crucial. That is what I hope you have learned. We listen for and collect and share stories. Without stories there is no nation and no religion and no culture. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Without stories of bone and substance and comedy there is...
  4. .. We would be foolish to say of Miss Moss, for example, that the words female and store owner and tall and thirtyish and kindly an unmarried describe much of real substance about her, isn't that so? A great deal of who she really is...
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