Great stories perpetuate themselves

From James P. Carse in Finite and Infinite Games:

Great stories have this feature: To listen to them and learn them is to become their narrators. Our first response to hearing a story is the desire to tell it ourselves — the greater the story the greater the desire. We will go to considerable time and inconvenience to arrange a situation for its retelling. It is as though the story is itself seeking the occasion for its recurrence, making use of us as its agents.

The same happens when someone sets good example for others.