Anecdote: It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story

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26/06/07 |

It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story

By Shawn Callahan. Follow me on Twitter. Filed in Quotes.

I read this lovely quote in the following paper, Petranker, J. (2005) 'The When of Knowing', The Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 241-259.

“When you are in the middle of a story, it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion, a dark roaring, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you are telling it to yourself, or to somebody else.”

Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

Thanks to Keren Winterford for sending it to me.

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