Quotes by Steven Hall

Theres no way to really preserve a person when theyve gone and thats because whatever you write down its not the truth; its just a story. Stories are all were ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together from selected facts, legends, well edited tall tales with us in the starring roles.

There’s no way to really preserve a person when they’ve gone and that’s because whatever you write down it’s not the truth, it’s just a story. Stories are all we’re ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together from selected facts, legends, well edited tall tales with us in the starring roles

try to visualize all the streams of human interaction, of communication. All those linking streams flowing in and between people, through text, pictures, spoken words and TV commentaries, streams through shared memories, casual relations, witnessed events, touching pasts and futures, cause and effect. Try to see this immense latticework of lakes and flowing streams, see the size and awesome complexity of it. This huge rich environment. This waterway paradise of all information and identities and societies and selves.

Its a sad fact that most people cant even spot a story when they see one. Most people dont know that stories arent confined by the covers of books or by half-hour slots on TV. The world is made of stories. The world is driven by stories. When a sunburned-friend tells you about their holiday, its not a straight list of everything that happened to them - its a story, an anecdote with a plot, a beginning, a middle and an end. Each one of their holiday snaps is a story too. When youre making a decision, and you imagine the possible outcomes - what are you doing if not telling yourself a story? History is a story. Society is a story. Countries are stories. Your plans are stories. Your desires are stories. Your own memories are stories - narratives selected, trimmed and packaged by the hidden machinery in your mind. Human beings are story engines. We have to be - to understand stories is to understand the world.

Without a story there is no meaning.And the nature of the meaning depends on the nature of the story.To understand this is to understand the true power of stories.And so, to control the stories, to be the one doing the telling...Well now, wouldnt that be quite a thing...?

o There’s no way to really preserve a person when they’ve gone and that’s because whatever you write down it’s not the truth, it’s just a story. Stories are all we’re ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together from selected facts, legends, well edited tall tales with us in the starring roles.

Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means theres not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.

But I’m old now and Ward has made himself rich and powerful. He has the resources to ensure that one day he’ll perfect his standardising system and if that happens, instead of a thousand Wards there will be a hundred thousand, a million, a billion. He’ll grow exponentially until there’s nothing and no one else left. Just Ward, Ward, Ward in every house, in every town and every city, in every country in the world. Forever.

Its like they say about soldiers coming back from war. People all around you are dying. Really dying, Eric. You go in for a weeks chemotherapy and youre in a ward with people who are really, actually dying, there and then and doing their best to come to terms with it. When the weeks up, you go home and you see your family and your friends and everythings normal and familiar. Its too much. You think - one world cant possibly hold both these lives and you feel like youre going to go crazy when you realise the world is that big and it can fill with the most terrible things whenever it wants to.

Beer. It always seems like such a good idea at the time, doesnt it? Whats worse is beer seems like an even better idea after youve had some beer.