The Storyteller (TV Series)

A Story Short (1988)

John Hurt: The Storyteller

Photos 

Quotes 

• Cook : What's your trade, fool? It can be scratched on your gravestone.

  The Storyteller : I am a teller of stories. A weaver of dreams. I can dance, sing, and in the right weather I can stand on my head. I know 7 words of Latin, I have a little magic...

  [the guards lower their halberds to bar his way, The Storyteller gestures them to remove the weapons] 

  The Storyteller : and a trick or two. I know the proper way to meet a dragon, I can fight dirty but not fair. I once swallowed thirty oysters in a minute. I am not domestic, I am a luxury and, in that sense, necessary.

• The Storyteller : Yesterday, I was telling a marvelous tale of how the moon became round. And suddenly, as I reached the best bit, I couldn't remember what came next. I still can't. And staring at these expectant faces, I thought, what will I do when there are no more stories in me? When the well runs dry? What use is a storyteller without stories? And then I remembered a time when that was exactly what happened.

• The Storyteller : Yes, yesterday I forgot a story. And that is why I went straight out and gave my supper to a beggar.

  Storyteller's Dog : Our supper.

  The Storyteller : Now of course, this will strike fools as foolish and wise men as wise. A fool eats his last potato, a wise man plants it. Apart from which everyone knows beggars are never what they seem.

• The Storyteller : [to his dog]  If you itch, you can think of me.

• The Storyteller : This morning a man blessed, by lunch a flea. This does not bode well for the evening. Unless I find my story, it's a boil in the oil...

• The Storyteller : And so, Majesty, I have no story to tell.

  King : [tearful]  But that's the best story I've ever heard

  [claps his hands] 

  Cook : And me!

  [cries and claps also] 

• The Storyteller : And then I understood what the beggar had done: he'd given me a story. When I was a story short, he made me one.

• The Storyteller : As for the cook, he threw out the pot of oil and kept the stone instead. Whenever a poor unfortunate came a-begging, he would make them a most delicious soup.

• The Storyteller : So that's how a story was lost and then found. And it's still told today, for the king will hear no other. Only it's changed now, the wife comes back to the storyteller, the storyteller becomes king, you know how it is in stories. She was a lovely. Lovely red hair...

  Storyteller's Dog : Are you hungry? I've got a bone somewhere.