Simple Narrative Quotes

If people can construct a simple and coherent story, they will feel confident regardless of how well grounded it is in reality.

One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.

Writing a children's book means you cannot spin out long narratives or have complex character development.

I did not intend for there to be an incisive historical lesson in 'North and South.' Basically, it's just a good, juicy story.

I don't get controversial, I don't get political and I don't tell you what to do with your life. I just go out there and tell some stories, and people can relate.

There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book.

I think there are many advantages to not knowing any of my prior work. The narrative threads, I think, are totally accessible to anyone who may never have heard of me. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end - I don't think there's going to be any confusion there.

It's the primordial characters [of the Star Wars]. It's the beautiful princess and the callow youth and the smartass that I played and the wise old warrior that Alec Guinness played. And it was a fairy tale. It was a fairy tale.

I'm not a character like Rapunzel or Cinderella; my story looks like any other.

In my books I try to tell a good story, not give messages.

History, as the study of the past, makes the coherence of what happened comprehensible by reducing events to a dramatic pattern and seeming them in a simple form.

You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analagous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.

The beautiful thing about 'American Gods' is that it's very simple at its core.

Mark Twain didn't psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn't put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry! Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot of explanatory medical terms.

If you lead a simple life, and that story is written, then that story will not satisfy. It needs an angle. Suppose there is no angle?

I love intricate plotting and exciting twists, but I realize more that people enjoy a good story in a simple, focused way.

But you know, I'm very conscious that people criticize Hollywood. Yet we've created a form, the Western, that can be understood in every country. The good guys against the bad guys. No nuances. And the horse is the best vehicle of action in our medium. You take action, a scene, and scenery, and cut them together, and you never miss.

I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.

I try to tell my story as simply as possible, with the camera at eye level.

History is often best told from the ground, out of a car window or in someone's kitchen, not through some huge production mechanism or grand framing device.

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo

There's something very simple and contemplative about 'John Wick' - what is interesting is that it looks like it was based on an Akira Kurosawa movie.

The joy of a road movie is its very simple narrative nature, which is that you know you're going to go through different places and you're going to meet new people. At the same time, you have to not make it feel too obvious and too crudely episodic.

A book can just be a description of a stick being snapped in half. If the reader is brought to feel the plight of the stick, well, you can imagine what that would be like.

I love westerns. It's guys being guys. There's no room for frilly stuff.