Narrative Control Quotes

Money is the probably the most successful story ever told. It has no objective value... but then you have these master storytellers: the big bankers, the finance ministers... and they come, and they tell a very convincing story.

There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

People say history was written by the winners. No, it wasn't. It was written by the bullies.

In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours.

When I wrote my first book, 'The Tennis Party', my overriding concern was that I didn't write the autobiographical first novel. I was so, so determined not to write about a 24-year-old journalist. It was going to have male characters, and middle-aged people, so I could say, 'Look, I'm not just writing about my life, I'm a real author.'

Look, I'm just a storyteller. When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda.

Don't ever let the viewer settle in and get ahead of you.

We all love narratives where we're the captain of our boat, and Americans love them more than anybody else.

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn't happen 20 years ago.

I want to tell a story and shape it all the way through to the end.

Facts just don’t mean anything anymore. It’s who shouts the loudest and repeats it the most.

History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their view. Or, at any rate, the victors' version is given prominence and holds the field.

People see whatever the media first reports.

The unfathomable isn’t something our media masters can tolerate. An unsurpassing self-assurance in their own moral and intellectual wisdom isn’t allowed to be punctured by the complex inexplicability of the real world. So to maintain the patina of omniscience they must fit the story into one of their narratives.

There are just so many options that people have. But as a writer, you'll drive yourself crazy, if you worry about that too much. People watch a lot of TV, so they think certain things are going to happen, and you're always trying to subvert expectations.

If we were writing what the fans wanted to see, Betty and Jughead would be the most linear, monotonous narrative of all time.

There's always a version of me who is the narrator. And I make myself look better than other people.

Until the lion learns to speak, the tales of hunting will be weak.

The notion of fate and destiny is a very Greek concept. Working in the theater you do think a lot about that, because as a storyteller you do think, 'At what point was this always going to happen and what part have I got a hand in being able to change things?'

Press is basically a created story. It's all just stories.

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.

Without sounding too pretentious, I was sort of a slave to the narrative. When the narrative cracks in, I have to go where it takes me. I had to go to the Bohemian Grove. It was the obvious end to the book.

I have never made a game that wasn't explicitly about empowering players to tell their own story.

History is written by the victors--and when there is no victors, it all winds up in the corporate shredders.

It's extremely important for women to be writing their own stories and giving them to people to really be emotionally impacted by