Storytelling quotes

“You tell me the story of your life and maybe I can suggest a happy ending.”

John Garfield - Joe Morse

“- Eddie Mars: Your story didn't sound quite right.
- Marlowe: Oh, that's too bad. You got a better one?
- Eddie Mars: Maybe I can find one.”
John Ridgely - Eddie Mars
Humphrey Bogart - Philip Marlowe

“Actors sure have stories. We always have stories. At the end of our careers, all we have to take with us is our stories, and we have many of them.”
Michael Eklund

“Everything starts with what's on the page, what a writer has come up with. And whether it is a big studio film or independent film, is the story being well told? Is it interesting? Is the character interesting? And is there something about the character that may stretch me?”
Joan Allen

“Old guy with a gun, it’s just kind of a funny story.”
Daniel Britt - Sheriff

“In drama, the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters.”
Sidney Lumet

“- Young Killmonger: Baba.
- N'Jobu: Yes, my son?
- Young Killmonger: Tell me a story.
- N'Jobu: Which one?
- Young Killmonger: The story of home.”
Seth Carr - Young Killmonger
Sterling K. Brown - N'Jobu

“You know this instant reminds me of one of old Aesop's fables - the one about the wolf in sheep's clothing, of course. Only in this instance, the wolf turns out to be an exchange professor from England.”
Melvyn Douglas - Ronald Brooke

“- Bill Stevens: What you want is a ghost writer.
- Joe Gurney: Nah no mystery stuff, just plain facts.”
James Stephenson - Bill Stevens
Humphrey Bogart - Joe Gurney

“After a while the cops started getting calls from people reporting all the missing thieves.”

Chauncey Leopardi - Michael 'Squints' Palledorous

“Movies are just a comforting fairy-tale compared to the real deal. Bram Stoker, he wrote a good yarn. But the events that he described back in 1897, God, that was just a tiny piece of the mosaic.”
Ryan Reynolds - Hannibal King

“- David Ghantt: What should I call you, sir?
- Steve: Nothing. You don't ever need to see me or know my name. You can refer to me as Geppetto.
- David Ghantt: Geppetto?
- Steve: Yeah, Geppetto. As in Pinnochio. As in, I pull the strings.
- David Ghantt: I think he means Stromboli.
- Steve: What did you call me?
- David Ghantt: Nothin'. I just...” (continue)(continue reading)
Zach Galifianakis - David Ghantt
Owen Wilson - Steve

“By the time we get here, which I guess should be the end, you're going to know the story of Freak the Mighty, who slayed dragons, saved maidens, and walked high above the world.”

Elden Henson - Maxwell Kane

“Many strange tales are told of this jungle. But none so strange as the tale of the cub we call Mowgli.”
Ben Kingsley - Bagheera

“Everybody asks why I started at the end and worked back to the beginning, the reason is simple, I couldn't understand the beginning until I had reached the end.”
Alison Lohman - Astrid Magnussen

“I know what he's going to do to her. She'll be cavorting, and twinkling, careening towards a happy ending like a kamikaze.”

Emma Thompson - P.L. Travers

“Let me just begin by saying that there are two sides to every story. This is my side, the right one.”

Emma Stone - Olive

“Stories don't end. They only go their separate ways. We take leave of them. Not knowing what comes after.”
Holliday Grainger - Maria

“- Bettina Barnes: Another lousy sci-fi flick. Berdine, I just can't identify with the Rat-Faced Girl from Mars.
- Berdine: Is it really that bad?
- Bettina Barnes: Honey, Lassie could fart out a better script.”
Kimberley Davies - Bettina Barnes
Danni Wheeler - Berdine

“I think the best way to tell the story is by starting at the end, briefly, then going back to the beginning, and then periodically returning to the end, maybe giving different characters' perspectives throughout. Just to give it a bit of dynamism, otherwise it's just sort of a linear story.”
Steve Coogan - David Ershon

“Once upon a time, there were three little pigs. The pigs encountered a big, bad wolf, who hired the three pigs to come work for her. One day, the pigs did something very stupid, so the wolf huffed, and puffed and she blew them off the face of the Earth! The end.”
Sandra Bullock - Scarlet Overkill

“I can assure you that the stories you hear about John Wick, if nothing else, have been watered down.”
Peter Stormare - Abram

“And so ends the story about a woman who died before her time, and a man who had long outlived his.”
Sir Ian McKellen - Sherlock Holmes

“- Destiny: You and I were friends!
- Dory: No.
- Destiny: It was so much fun because I’d tell you a story and then you’d completely forget it about, and then I’d get to tell it to you over and over again.”
Kaitlin Olson - Destiny
Ellen Lee DeGeneres - Dory

“Perhaps later on I will tell you the story of how we came to be here. It is an interesting tale. Some of it is even true. But for now, I can say that from the moment I saw her, I loved her. And no matter the price, you cannot walk away from love.”
Antonio Banderas - Luis Antonio Vargas