American storyteller Reynolds Price wrote:
A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens – second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day’s events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths. (Price, Reynolds (1978). A Palpable God, New York:Atheneum, p.3.)
I would not like to choose between stories in my life or a roof over my head. Stories sustain and nourish us. I can’t imagine living without them.
Reynolds Price was a prolific American Writer of everything including short stories. I found this lovely languid story of his as a podcast from The New Yorker. Make a cup of tea, get your headphones and listen to Reynolds Price’s, His Final Mother and imagine if you could live without stories.
http://soundcloud.com/newyorker/james-salter-reads-reynolds