"When a day passes it is no longer there.
What remains of it? Nothing more than a story.
If stories weren't told or books weren't written, one [man] would live like beasts - only for a day.
Today, we live, but tomorrow today will be a story.
The whole world, all human life, is one long story."
[Singer in Cooper & Collins,1992, Look What Happened to Frog, p. 8]
“Story is another word we all understand in context without being able to put a precise meaning to it. Stories usually but not inevitably involve location, landscapes, protagonists, intentions, emotions, conflicts, obstacles, struggles, and consequences (which always lead into new stories.) These are elements we always look for in any situation in which we are involved” (Frank Smith in To Think, 2014, p. 63).
Our “thought flows in terms of stories” and “the brain is a story-seeking, story creating instrument” (Frank Smith, 1990, pp. 62-63). Stories are "a human invention" and "learning 'story' and learning to 'story' involves learning a way of thinking, a way of organizing events and information, a way of knowing" (Rietz, 1988, p. 164). We are stories (King, 2003, p. 2). “We live by stories and we live in them. One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or we are also living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves” (Okri, as cited in King, 2003, p. 153).
Stories consume us, serve as a template for making sense of ourselves, others and the world around us. Stories are technological extensions of ourselves as coding systems, which are culturally situated. (Schwarz, 1997)
“The stories we tell not only explain things to others; they explain them to ourselves as well.” (Donald Norman)
“People often are powerless, alone, afraid; this is because someone else is telling their story for them: ‘You are stupid.
You are ugly. You are undesirable. You are useless.’ Through storytelling, you recognize your real story” (Joseph Bruchac
cited in Vitali, 2016, pp. 30-31).
"We need to study our kids. We should consistently be asking them why, because they don't see things the way we do. They're unblocked and unbound" (Artist Erik Wahl in Mayeux, 2008, pp. A7).
“People think in terms of stories. They understand the world in terms of stories that they have already understood. New events or problems are understood by reference to old previously understood stories and explained to others by the use of stories. We understand personal problems and relationships between people through stories that typify those situations. We also understand just about everything else this way as well…Stories are very basic to the human thinking process.” (Roger Schank)
“You can’t understand the world without telling a story. There isn’t any center to the world but a story.” (Gerald Vizenor)
“Stories are a form of representation that help people keep track of their discoveries, providing meaningful structure for remembering what has been learned.” (Hilary McLellan)
“Stories propose a truth or a set of truths…’Story’ and ‘learning story’ and learning ‘to story’ involve learning a way of thinking, a way of organizing events and information, a way of knowing. An oral literature represents a cosmology, something which cannot be taught as a constellation of ‘facts’, but, something that can be ‘known’ through inductive experience with a body of stories.” (Sandra Rietz)