“A myth is 'a narrative involving supernatural or fancied persons embodying popular ideas or social phenomena.' Women love telling stories . . . the girl-group is a gigantic narrative full of morality tales locked up like charms in a crystallized sound.”

“Reading myth as crystallizing historical fact was a commonapproach in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But it is anapproach to myth that is fraught with problems. It ignores ortakes insufficient account of how mythic narratives are exploited for political purposes.”

“This is how it works now with the news: the story begins with a moral, then a narrative is fashioned to support it.”

“We need creative license with the fictional narratives that become our memories. Anthologized, these are the tales that become the story of your life.”

“We take creative license with the fictional narratives that become our memories. Anthologized, these are the tales that become the story of your life.”

“Responding to myth often means wearingblinkers. Myth is a complex game of production and reception that involves selecting some parts of a narrative and suppressing others. As we shall see later on, this process of communication is not always easily controlled.”