The Moth > Quotes

“We are emotional beings. We feel nostalgic about people and places, sentimental about childhood. We cry at weddings and revel in surprise. We love passionately and mourn deeply. Beyond eloquent and invisible construction of the story, emotion is the glue that connects storytellers and listeners.”
― The Moth, How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

“You don’t need to be a writer to be a storyteller. Your story is enough. —Padma Lakshmi”
― The Moth, How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

“As a storyteller, you should constantly ask yourself: What was unique to my experience? Why am I the only person who can tell this story? How can I best deliver my story to an audience who may not have lived through the same thing? Often when you’re telling a story about an event, especially a tragic event, it can quickly become a recounting of a series of things that happened. The dreaded and then and then and then. By finding a smaller detail or story within the larger events—a narrative thread—you are able to give the story an arc instead.”
― The Moth, How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

“Somebody once told me, and I wish to God that I had got it sooner, that there is no such thing as a dying person; there are living people and there are dead people. And as long as somebody is alive- as long as they have any sentience or sense about them- you have to expect and allow them to be who they have always been. Never more important than at the end of somebody's life that they get to be who they are and who they always were.”
― The Moth, The Moth Presents: A Point of Beauty: True Stories of Holding On and Letting Go

“When you listen to a person’s story told from their vulnerable heart, those walls of difference and indifference crumble just a bit, and our basic common humanity shines through.”
― The Moth, The Moth Presents: A Point of Beauty: True Stories of Holding On and Letting Go