“We all fictionalize ourselves in the process of creating a story out of the raw materials of our life. For some it is a soap opera, for others an epic, but, for all of us, it's an ongoing narrative that we constantly manipulate and reshape, improving (like the best anecdotes) in the retelling. This is not just true of writers. The story is one of the key ways we define and order our experiences as human beings: how we tell ourselves and others who we are.(from the Daily Telegraph)”

“And life is a good thing for a writer. It's where we get our raw material, for a start. We quite like to stop and watch it.”

“The ability to see our lives as stories and share those stories with others is at the core of what it means to be human. We use stories to order and make sense of our lives, to define who we are, even to construct our realities: this happened, then this happened, then this. I was, I am, I will be. We recount our dreams, narrate our days and organize our memories into stories we tell others and ourselves. As natural-born storytellers, we respond to others’ stories because they are deeply, intimately familiar.”

“But Andrew was right about one thing. Human beings need to tell stories. Historically, it's the quickest way we have for transmitting useful information to other members of our species. Stories are not simply nice things to have; they are essential survival tools. And yes, the stories we tell ourselves are just as important as the stories we tell other people.”

“Stories are in one way or another mirrors. We use them to explain to ourselves how the world works or how it doesn’t work. Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness.”

“There are stories that are true, in which each individual's tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it to deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others' pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to.”

“From what I've been able to figure out, all of us are here together and we need one another. We must celebrate each other's differences. Learning to ask for help is as important as learning the value of helping other people. I believe all the people in my life have been there for a reason, and I hope I have been in theirs for a reason as well. It's taken me a while, but I feel truly blessed. After all is said and done, I love life, I love people, and I love being me.”