If one were a Buddhist, one might say we spend much of our lives in “monkey-mind,” swinging from story to story, our thoughts never quiet. Perhaps our fear, that in the silence between stories, in the moment of falling, the fear that we will never find the one story which will save us, and so we lunge for another, and we feel safe again, if only for as long as we are telling it.

— Nick Flynn, on the purpose of telling stories
[Quote courtesy of Sleepz and Thinkz]