"You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story"
About this Quote
Her first sentence is craft-minded but also quietly ethical: “the right person” suggests that stories aren’t owned so much as best delivered. Point of view becomes a question of fit, not entitlement. That’s classic Beattie-world realism: people don’t narrate their lives in clean arcs; they dodge, revise, perform. Choosing the storyteller is choosing what kind of distortion you can tolerate. The “right” voice might be the one with blind spots, the one who can’t quite explain themselves, the one who reports instead of interprets. Understatement does more work than analysis.
“Pontificating” is the acid word. It punctures the modern premium on self-commentary and calls out a familiar tonal failure: the narrator who keeps stepping between reader and scene to annotate their own emotional intelligence. Beattie’s subtext is that story lives in tension - in what’s shown without being pre-certified as important. Her intent isn’t anti-intellect; it’s anti-self-credentialing. Let the events carry their own charge, and let the reader do some of the knowing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Beattie, Ann. (2026, January 17). You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-figure-out-who-the-right-person-is-to-40276/
Chicago Style
Beattie, Ann. "You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-figure-out-who-the-right-person-is-to-40276/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-figure-out-who-the-right-person-is-to-40276/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
