Men have everyadvantage of us in telling their story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.

-Austen,Jane
  Persuasion, ch.23.

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

-Barrie, SirJ(ames) M(atthew)
The Little Minister, vol.1, ch.1.

Here then will we begin the story: onlyadding thus much to that which hath been said, that it is a foolish thing to make a long prologue, and to be short in the story itself.

-Bible (Apocrypha)
Maccabees 2:32.

The Victorians expected every building, like every painting, to tell a story, and preferably to point to a moral as well. 199

-Casson, Sir Hugh Maxwell
  An Introduction to Victorian  Architecture.

Every fine story must leave in the mind of the sensitive reader an intangible residuum of pleasure, a cadence, a quality of voice that is exclusively the writer's own, individual, unique.

-Cather,Willa Sibert
  Not Under Forty, 'Miss  Jewett'.

Matilda Briggs†was a ship which is associated with the giant ratof Sumatra, a story for whichtheworld isnot yet prepared.

-Doyle, SirArthur Conan
  The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes,'The Sussex Vampire'.

A pesar de que la m|¤a es historia, no la empezare¤   por el arca de Noe¤   y la genealog|¤a de sus ascendientes como acostumbraban hacerlo los antiguos historiadores espan‹  oles deAme¤  rica, que deben ser nuestros prototipos. I'm going to tell a true story, but I won't start with Noah's Ark and the genealogy of his forefathers, as is usual among the ancient Spanish historians of America, who we consider our prototypes.

-Echeverr|¤  a, Esteban
  El matadero (The Slaughter-House,1959).

Dust in the air suspended Marks the place where a story ended.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'Little Gidding', pt.2.

Story is just just deserts†man in the crucible like jack in the box.

-Elkin, Stanley Lawrence
  'The Future of the Novel', in the NewYork Times,17 Feb.

He must teach himself that the basest of all things isto be afraid and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop foranything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomedölove and honour and pityand compassion and sacrifice.

-Faulkner,William Harrison
  Nobel prize acceptance speech.

Yesöoh dear yesöthe novel tells a story.

-Forster, E(dward) M(organ)
  Aspects of the Novel, ch.2.

And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

-Frost, Robert Lee
  'The Lesson for Today'.

On the Beach is a storyabout the end of the world, and Melbourne sure is the right place to film it.

-Gardner, Ava originally Lucy Johnson
  Alleged comment to Australian journalist Neil Jillett of the Melbourne Age at the shooting of a film based on the book by British^ Australian novelist Nevil Shute.

What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.

-Goldwyn, Sam(uel) originally  Schmuel Gelbfisz
Quoted in Leslie Halliwell Halliwell's Filmgoer's and Video Viewer's Companion (9th edn,1989).

Tell me the old, old story, Of unseen things above.

-Hankey, Katherine
  The Story  Wanted,'Tell Me the Old, Old Story'.

It would indeed be the ultimate tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more noble than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump.

-Harlech,William David Ormsby Gore, 5th Baron
  In the Christian Science Monitor, 25 Oct.

He remembered poor Julian and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, 'The very rich are different from you and me.'And somebody had said to Julian,'Yes, they have more money.' See Fitzgerald 325:3.

-Hemingway, Ernest Millar
  'The Snows of Kilimanjaro', in Esquire,  Aug. In the original version'Julian' was named as F Scott Fitzgerald, but the pseudonym was used for book publication in The Fifth Column and Other Stories (1938).

Ist es schwer und kann es ein AuÞenseiter begreifen,dass man eine Geschichte von ihrem Anfang in sich erlebt, vom fernen Punkt bis zu der heranfahrenden Lokomotive aus Stahl, Kohl und Dampf, sie aber auchjetzt noch nicht verl a« sst, sondern von ihr gejagt wird und aus eigenem Schwung vor ihr l a« uft, wohin sie nur st o« Þt und wohin man sie lockt. It is so difficult and can an outsider understand that you experience a story within yourself from its beginning, fromthe distant point up to theapproaching locomotive of steel, coal and steam, and you don't abandon it even now, but want to be pursued by it and have time for it, therefore are pursued by it and of your own volition run before it wherever it may thrust and wherever you may lure it.

-Kafka, Franz
Diary entry,  Aug. Collected in Max Brod (ed)  The Diaries of Franz Kafka,1910^1913 (1948).

Yes, they say, go and write whatever story you want, but don't use whatever language is necessary† By implication those in authority ask the writer to censor and suppressheror his ownwork.Theydemand it.If you don't comply then your work isn't produced.

-Kelman,James
  Some Recent  Attacks,'The Importance of Glasgow in My Work'.

   Farewell (sweet Cooke-ham) where I first obtained Grace from that grace where perfect grace remained; And where the muses gave their full consent, I should have power the virtuous to content; Where princely palace willed me to indite, The sacred story of the soul's delight.

-Lanyer, Aemilia
Salve Deus Ex Judaeorum,'The Description of Cooke-ham'. Probably the first 'country-house'poem in English, this work is dedicated to Margaret Russell Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, and her daughter,  Anne Clifford, whose family home was Cookham.