The Storyteller Quotes

“I can’t be forgiven so I am not asking you for forgiveness. We lost each other, and we will never find each other again.”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“The words that I will have to find for that explanation will be sharp and they will hurt, much worse than the thorns of roses.”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“There are fewer answers in the world than questions, and if you ask me now why that is so, I must tell you that there is no answer to that question.”
― Antonia Michaelis

“She had taught herself how to knit, and for the mare's scarf - it was green - she had given herself the best grade possible. And ...'
'That's silly!' Micha giggled.
'Well, who is the cliff queen, you or me?' Abel asked. 'It isn't my fault if you're giving yourself grades!”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“Anna took his hand to gauge the swelling. 'Let's at least put something cold around it. Frozen peas work pretty well.'
'Do I have to eat them?'
'No, you just have to inject them into a vein,' Anna said.”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“Abel was brushing the snow off his parka while Micha was dancing around him, still balancing the plate of cookies, singing, 'We're staying, we're staying, we're staying overnight! We're drying! We're drying! We're drying on the line!”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“a story will tell itself, when it’s ready”
― Jodi Picoult

“There are all sorts of losses people suffer- from the small to the large. You can lose your car keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assisted living, or have a child move overseas, or see a spouse vanish into dementia. Loss is more than just death, and grief is the gray shape-shifter of emotion.”
― Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

“...but I used to think," Josef says quietly, "that there are some weeds that are just as beautiful as flowers."
(pg 134)”
― Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

“What must you break apart in order to bring a family close together? Bread, of course.”
― Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

“He knows what will upset me before it even happens and like a superhero, bends the track of the runaway train before it strikes.”
― Jodi Picoult

“Any military man will tell you that the way to pull two divided groups together is to give them a common enemy. This is what Hitler did, when he came to power in 1933 as chancellor.”
― Jodi Picoult

“By late March 1942, everyone knew someone who had been deported... It was the season of Passover, and this was our plague, but no amount of lambs' blood would save a household from tragedy. It seemed the only blood that satisfied was that of the families inside.”
― Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

“The unidentified fact is that most people only see the reason behind their revelation, how dark or cruelly oppressing it might be; while many actually forget their whole purpose behind this revolutionary transformation into a superhero.”
― Md Mazidul Haque Farabi, THE STORYTELLER: A SUPERHERO BOOK

“The Storyteller
The little boy stumbled through the forest. He was sure that wild animals were chasing him, and wanted to eat him.
As he crashed through the undergrowth he suddenly emerged into a clearing. He looked around, fearing that he could hear animals, but all was quiet.
The little boy walked further into the clearing. He saw a small stool with a book on it. He stopped, and looked around wondering who had left the stool, and the book there.
He walked over to the stool, and picked up the book to look at it.
Without thinking, he sat down, and opened the book.
He started to read aloud. The only sound in the clearing was the little boy’s voice.
He had forgotten about his earlier fear, and he had also stopped imagining that he could hear animals after him.
Once he had finished reading the story he put the book down, and he said to the clearing, “I’ll come back tomorrow to read again.”
The little boy left the clearing and reentered the forest. He wasn’t afraid anymore. It was if he had a new found confidence, and manner.
The next day he returned, and found a different book on the stool, and as before, he sat down, and started to read.
This went on for a week. After seven days animals started to come through the undergrowth, and entered the clearing. When they saw the boy, and heard his storytelling they would stop, find a place to sit down, and listen to him.
One day he heard a roar behind him, and the little boy turned around, coming face to face with a tiger.
“Shhh!” he told the tiger, and gave it a smack across the nose.
The tiger was taken aback, but he did as he was told and he went to a tree. Then he too, sat and listened to the little boy.
This went on for many years, and some animals died never to return, while others grew old as the little boy did.
One day, when the little boy was no more but a little old man he died as he was reading one of his stories.
The animals looked up, and listened to the silence.
Wild dogs howled, elephants trumpeted their calls, birds tweeted and chirped, monkeys chatted and tigers roared as one.
The tiger, who many years ago the little boy had smacked across the nose, carried the little boy, and laid him to rest under his tree.
The animals lined up to pay their respects to the little boy who had devoted his life to reading to the animals.
As they lined up, they were watched by God, Buddha, Allah and Ganesha, who were standing off to the side. They had tears in their eyes, not because the little boy had died, but because as each animal came to the body of the little boy, each animal would lay their head down on his chest, and shed tears over the boy’s body.
Finally a small baby elephant came, and laid his head, and trunk down on the little boy’s body, and his tears flowed over the little boy’s chest.
When the animals had left, there was an eerie silence over the clearing.
Many, many years passed until one day, a small girl come running through the bushes, with a frightened look on her face. She stopped, and looked around the clearing. She saw a small stool, and so she walked over to it, wondering who would leave such a thing here in the forest.
She sat down on the stool and looked down. She saw a box full of books.
The little boy smiled.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“That bunch there calls it physicalist magick. They ain’t religious, but they ain’t evil, neither. They’re for the people, the principles of physics, and the buzzing countryside — crickets, combat drones, June bugs, electric fences — gadgets that makes a moonshiner’s still look like child’s play,”
― Jangled Jester, The Secular Occultist's Handbook of Physicalist Magick