Top 210 Storyteller Quotes

To this day, if you gave me $1,000, I really can’t stand up – You can tell a joke. You’re a good storyteller and a good joke teller.

The don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach to plot and character that ‘The Hurt Locker’ relies on to set itself in motion doesn’t offend me politically. It offends me as a storyteller.

Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller.

Instincts are a really important guide for any artist, but particularly filmmakers because it takes a lot to stay true to your instincts as a storyteller.

I never wanted to be a brand director. I didn’t want that kind of stamp. I wanted to be more like Pacino or Dustin Hoffman or Meryl Streep or De Niro – you know, a chameleon as a storyteller – because I love all kinds of movies.

I think I’ve become a better storyteller over the years.

I’m a storyteller. I do this for the next generations. They have to know what traditional alpinism is all about.

No matter how dark things may get in a story, I feel it’s the responsibility of the storyteller to leave the audience with at least a shred of hope.

When I first encountered Shakespeare as a boy, I read every word this man has written. To me, he is like an African storyteller.

I want to make a period film, I want to make a film set in another country. I want to make a foreign film. I want to make everything eventually. I am a storyteller. I have many stories to tell.

When I came to L.A., I absolutely fell in love with the energy of the place. It’s such a creative hub, so as a storyteller, there’s nothing better than when you’re surrounded by people who think like you and have the same goals as you.

I tell stories, and I do it through writing, through acting, through my stand-up, and through directing. All the hats I wear – producing as well – ultimately, I am a storyteller.

I have never forgotten the almost mystical power over an audience a storyteller has, when the story is deep and links you.

I’m a storyteller; that’s what exploration really is all about. Going to places where others haven’t been and returning to tell a story they haven’t heard before.

As a stand-up, as a storyteller, as an improviser, I’ve done thousands of shows. They allow me to work out new material that might turn into something later. They let me keep my muscles sharp for when the rent-paying gigs do come along. They keep me sane.

The ultimate storyteller is Shakespeare, who was able to get the ‘groundlings’ to laugh at his bawdy humor and storylines but could still be studied by scholars to this day for the complexity of his language, meter, and symbolism. That’s the real guy.

I think of myself as an assistant storyteller.

I am very fortunate in that I have spent pretty much my whole life being a writer, and before I was a writer, I was a storyteller.

To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.

People expect me to be, first and foremost, a storyteller. I lead by telling stories.

Fundamentally, whether directing in the theatre or a film, you have to be a good storyteller, regardless of the form. The thing I had to work hardest at was thinking in shots.

I didn’t want to be a storyteller when I grew up; I wanted to be stuntman.

I see myself as a storyteller.

You get told a lot in school to tell what you know, write what you know. But what excites me about filmmaking, about being a storyteller, is being able to learn about other people, putting myself in somebody else’s shoes, whether that be someone from the Dominican Republic or someone from Cuba or inner-city Brooklyn.

I think of myself… as a troubadour, a village storyteller, the guy in the shadows of the campfire.

I always say show me a storyteller who doesn’t embellish, and I’ll show you a bad one.

The success of the storytellers – we’re only as good as what we can withhold from the audience. Aspects of surprise and letting things play out for the audience – it’s so much a part of their enjoyment. It’s one of the great things about working in the movies and being a great storyteller.

As far as the balance between being a journalist, being an artist, being a storyteller – documentary filmmakers are all three of those things. The balance between them is affected by the film itself, the topic of the film.

When you’re just starting out, and someone you think is a real storyteller says something good about you, that helps.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I’d run away.

All I’ve ever done since I was 17 is tell stories. You know, I’m a storyteller. And that’s what I’m going to keep on doing, especially now, kind of embracing and making sure that we tell immigration.

I’m a storyteller… I haves a God-given gift that I can share with you and perhaps entertain you and bring you along for the ride… So when anybody tries to take that away from me, or impede that, I get defensive.

Bill Condon, I must say, may have been one of the best professional experiences of my life, collaborating with him. He, himself, is an Academy Award winning screenwriter. He is a storyteller first and foremost, so we speak the same language. We approach things always from the story.

I was a writer first, and knew I’d be a storyteller at age seven. But since my parents are very practical, they urged me to go into a profession that would be far more secure, so I went to medical school.

I think of myself as a storyteller.

I want to be a storyteller – not only of the Latin experience but of people who want to be inspired.

I’m a storyteller, I’m an actor, an entertainer.

I think I’m a born storyteller. Inspiration is all around me. I can read a newspaper article and come up with an idea for a book.

I’m a storyteller – that’s the chief function of a director. And they’re moving pictures, let’s make ’em move!

I wanted to do what I was seeing Dorothy Dandridge doing, what I saw Marilyn Monroe do, what I saw Bette Davis do. I wanted to do that: to tell stories. I wanted to make people laugh, make people cry. I wanted to be a storyteller.

Also, in my acting, I feel very much like a storyteller, exploring the flaws of the characters that I interpret. I look for the imperfections, and I love a character that is just so flawed.

Even as an actor, I think like a storyteller. My parents raised us to look at the script.

I don’t want to say you should censor yourselves, but the storyteller should be able to defend why a narrative needed to shift that way or should only be told this way.

I’m a good storyteller.

I go back to read ‘Tarzan’ books every now and again or ‘John Carter,’ and you realize Edgar Rice Burroughs is not a great writer by any means. But he was a great storyteller. You wanted to see what happened next.

Whether I’m telling stories in songs or if directing is the next step, being a storyteller is what I like doing.

I am essentially an entertainer and a storyteller.

I’m hardly a known name, but I don’t want to go, like, ‘Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.’ I don’t want that to happen.

Rowling is a luminous storyteller. I love her sense of humor and the intricate wizarding world she built around Hogwarts. I think all writers aspire to be like her, to capture readers like she does. But I didn’t think about ‘Harry Potter’ when I wrote ‘The Bone Season.’

I don’t have Facebook or Twitter accounts yet. Being a compulsive storyteller, I always make up for myself discouraging stories about how such accounts will get me into embarrassing and time-consuming situations.

Creating is one thing; telling the story is one thing. I see myself more as a storyteller than a story creator.

James Salter is a consummate storyteller. His manners are precise and elegant; he has a splendid New York accent; he runs his hands through his gray hair and laughs boyishly.

I think I just have this need to be a storyteller. That’s why I wasn’t a great dancer – I couldn’t articulate a story. I was a better choreographer. I have the need to to just express myself in that way. I can’t explain it.

I’m not representing anyone – not Israelis, not Palestinians – I’m just a storyteller trying to raise more questions than give answers.

I’m certainly no Bruce Springsteen in terms of being a storyteller, but I’m trying to get a better handle on it and not always go after it from an autobiographical standpoint.

Honestly, I’m the worst storyteller ever. Like, I just take so long.

When I discovered that, through acting, you can speak a beautiful language aloud and have a relationship to language that isn’t one that’s just eyes-to-page, pen-to-page – it’s one that’s full-bodied, full-voiced, full-heart… it really opened my heart and made me feel like I could be a storyteller.