In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also 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. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.

There is the great suffering that is an intrinsic part of love, the love of one’s work, the love of the world, and of humanity. There is the unbargained-for cost of telling stories — the hounding by dictators, military leaders, spy networks, secret services, all those with their own agendas, all those who like or dislike only through the screen or filter of their ideologies or insecurities. There are other costs — the death-threats, the enmities incurred by the innocence of the word, the demons of rivalry, the degrading competition which leads the best practitioners, if they submit, away from their beautiful journey.

Either a nation faces its uncomfortable truths, or it is overwhelmed by them; for there is a prophetic consequence in the perpetuation of lies, just as there is an unavoidable fate for all those who refuse to see.

There are some things on earth that are stronger than death. One of these is the eternal human quest for justice; a people cannot live without it, and in due course they will be prepared to die to make it possible for their children.

Fables are made of this.

Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals or nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.

The superiority of one writer over another is not just in the quality of language; but also in the quality of the story and the storytelling; the quality of enchantment; and the timelessness of that enchantment. It is therefore futile to speak of superiorities. There is only that which lives, and which keeps on living.