QuoteProject
So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Stories can influence our emotions and well-being, just as negative narratives can harm us, positive narratives can heal and uplift.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's quote reflects the profound impact of storytelling on human experience. Just as negative, harmful tales can disturb and sicken individuals, the power of positive and uplifting myths can inspire and restore. It underscores the responsibility of storytellers and artists to craft narratives that not only entertain but also promote healing and well-being amidst the chaos of life.

Themes

StorytellingHealingMythsNarrativesEmotions

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about mental health, one might cite this quote to illustrate the healing power of positive stories.

More from Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Yes, actually ever since I saw his films and tried to write about them, Sirk's been in everything I've done. Not Sirk himself, but what I've learned from his work.
Rainer Werner FassbinderRead
I'd like to be for cinema what Shakespeare was for theatre, Marx for politics and Freud for psychology: someone after whom nothing is as it used to be.
Rainer Werner FassbinderRead
I detest the idea that love between two persons can lead to salvation. All my life I have fought against this oppressive type of relationship. Instead, I believe in searching for a kind of love that somehow involves all of humanity.
Rainer Werner FassbinderRead
It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.
Rainer Werner FassbinderRead
The more real things get, the more like myths they become. There have always been myths, but the myths of earlier times were, Im convinced, bad ones, because they made people sick. So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.
Rainer Werner FassbinderRead

Similar quotes

Zombies are a great rhetorical prop to talk about people and paranoia, and they are a good vehicle for my misanthropy.
Colson WhiteheadRead
We have inhabited both the actual and the imaginary realms for a long time. But we don't live in either place the way our parents or ancestors did. Enchantment alters with age, and with the age. We know a dozen Arthurs now, all of them true. The Shire changed irrevocably even in Bilbo's lifetime. Don Quixote went riding out to Argentina and met Jorge Luis Borges there. Plus c'est la mΓͺme chose, plus Γ§a change.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery.
Leo TolstoyRead
In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume that someone else _x000D_ will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.
Dalai LamaRead
The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.
NovalisRead
Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.
Audrey HepburnRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.