“Storytelling was the most honored of all talents, for it benefited everyone.”

“on the day that the intlligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and the planet itself will benefit in ways we can only begin to imagine.”

“A talent is no talent, unless it is used for the benefit of other people.”

“Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. Beautiful in the concept, if we're lucky, but frequently tedious or regrettable as we flesh ourselves out.”

“Storytellers are the most powerful people on earth. They might not be the best paid-- but they are the most powerful. Storytellers have the power to move the human heart-- and there is no greater power on earth.”

“Every morning brings us news of the globe, and yet we are poor in noteworthy stories. This is because no event comes to us without being already shot through with explanation. In other words, by now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling; almost everything benefits information. Actually, it is half the art of storytelling to keep a story free from explanation as one reproduces it. . . . The most extraordinary things, marvelous things, are related with the greatest accuracy, but the psychological connection of the event is not forced on the reader. It is left up to him to interpret things the way he understands them, and thus the narrative achieves an amplitude that information lacks.”