You are saying, are you not, I said to Manuelito, that stories have more room in them than ideas?
He laughed.
That is correct, Señor. It is as if ideas are made of blocks. Rigid and hard. And stories are made of a gauze that is elastic. You can almost see through it, so what is beyond is tantalizing. You can’t quite make it out; and because the imagination is always moving forward, you yourself are constantly stretching. Stories are the way spirit is exercised.
Alice Munro, By the Light of My Father’s Smile
Public Domain Image: Sami drum of undefined origin, Jens Andreas Friis, Lappisk mythologi, eventyr og folkesagn (1871)