Hilton Als Quotes

Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too.

I'm actually quite critical of the storytelling theme. I think all the storytellers are not storytellers.

You can't tell a story linearly if you want people to understand.

Stories are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments.

I am fascinated by storytelling glue. Anytime I see someone who's good at it, I stop and wonder, 'How'd they 'do this? Why can't I tear myself away?

I don't purposely push the boundaries... I think if you pay attention to a story, it will have exactly as much 'difficult material' as it needs, and nobody will complain about it because you've earnt it.

As a writer, I had learned a lot on 'Margin Call' about embracing the weaknesses of a narrative and of a project. A story always has an inherent narrative weakness.

I love storytelling so for me to get behind a story and get in there early in its infancy and kind of develop it in the early stages was something I really wanted to be a part of.

People who actually tell stories, meaning people who write novels and make feature films, don't see themselves as storytellers.

You start as an audience member and create a world you're interested in, and then you move into the telling of those stories, bringing what has interested you as an audience member.

Do the story in the way it really demands to be done, which may mean using several different styles or only one style; but it's still about respecting the story.

The key is to work with people who are passionate about storytelling and who have a similar sensibility of the type and nature of the stories that you want to tell.

I learned there's an amazing unexplored territory in terms of narrative. Before, I thought the unexplored territory was the form, the way you shoot a movie. Now, I'm learning about the beautiful marriage between form and narrative.

I guess you can stay sort of true to the story; you don't have to artificially bring the character back from whatever doom you've designed for them, you can tell the story, I suppose, honestly.

The art of storytelling is in development, not fact sheets. There are posts you have to hammer into the ground from the start just to get going, but if they don't hold up the house you build, you can change them or take them out.

I think stories do have an ending. I think they need to have an ending eventually because that is a story: a beginning, middle and end. If you draw out the end too long, I think storytelling can get tired.

I wanted to hold onto and exploit the power of narrative. This is not only a book about a great storyteller, but there have to be stories about the storyteller.

How many times can you put together 26 different stories without running out?

I'm a storyteller. If I have that on my precis when I go, 'Storyteller,' I'm satisfied with that.

It's really important for me to have a record which has a strong narrative feel to it.

I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from the day I was born.

You first and foremost need to be honest with the script because you don't want to do anything to screw up the basic fundamentals of the story. You don't want to create anything overly dramatic when you don't need to, and you don't want to create anything less dramatic than necessary, either.

Part of the job is knowing how to use this medium in the most effective way for the story you're telling, so for me, to pick a genre I want to do is a little harder. I would say it's more about thinking, 'What genre will work for what kind of story?' And then, when all of that comes, I embrace it and run with it.

I definitely hope to create, to tell some stories on larger canvases, which does mean making something that is narratively more broad. But that's not a bad thing.

I think all good short stories are about what it means to tell a good story.