Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

I loved that it was about human relationships and then it was a mystery without falling into the trap of a thriller per se, because it pulled you in through people rather than through events or...

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.

If I'm gonna tell a real story, I'm gonna start with my name.

Every kid has a toy that they believe is their best friend, that they believe communicates with them, and they imagine it being alive, their toy horse or car or whatever it is. Stop - motion is the...

I like working on stories where I can explore the darker corners of childhood without illustrations but with humor.

I wanted to make a film that wouldn't just appeal to Formula One fans. That's what the great sports documentaries do - 'Hoop Dreams,' 'When We Were Kings' - they're human dramas first, sport second,...

We didn't ever want 'Tarzan' to feel like he was just a man. We didn't want him to stand up straight or wave goodbye. We wanted to make sure he always had that piece of gorilla in him, that he always...

Above all mediums, through which storytelling is conveyed, none has the potential to draw us in, to hold us spellbound, but the unassuming book.

Azdaha were no joke. ... Not much is known about this dragon {the aforementioned Gandarw}, except that he apparently had yellow heels. I wonder why that was such an important detail. I mean if I were...

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but with me it always ends up being well over a hundred thousand.

"I believe that we don't choose our stories," she began, leaning forward. "Our stories choose us." She paused and took a sip of water. Her hand, I noticed was steady.. "And if we don't tell them, then...

Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal functions, as either a storyteller or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder, love, and daring. When we cease to tell or listen, then we no...

We all tell stories - to ourselves and to each other. Some of learn to tell only the most interesting bits.

And I here make a rule - a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familiar.

So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no...

Screenwriting is made of brevity.

In the words he's free, on the page he can be anything. A hero.

And then this happened. And then this other thing happened. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you about the time this happened. I should've had this book over for a cup of coffee and a chat.

Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of...

Action is the pulse of any good story, but the character is the heart. If the action has no consequence to the character, the story loses heart.

I get annoyed when a self-indulgent writer just shows off what he knows but doesn't really tell a story. To me, storytelling is first a craft. Then if you're lucky, it becomes an art form. But first,...

"Fiction is very, very important," he said, his voice rising. "Storytelling is how people learn. You get people to understand new cultures and other lives through stories. Made-up stories. Fiction."

I guessed his name was Face of Horror. I wondered how long it had taken his mom to think of that. Bob? No. Sam? No. How about Face of Horror?

You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them.

Ideas come and go, stories stay.

Would you like to hear the night I bravely fought the

I can't say that exhaustive research and reporting will guarantee a great story, but I've never been able to pull one off without it.

and the characters are all invented as to their psychological evolution, though some are based upon those of real persons easily identifiable in that narrative. The drama is that of the actual events...

The movie I was working on, "Cleopatra", it's about how destructive a force love can be. But maybe that's what every story is about.