There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.
Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964), U.S. fiction writer and essayist. Mystery and Manners, part 5 (1969).
Written in 1963.