The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. -Muriel Rukeyser, poet and activist (15 Dec 1913-1980)
A nice sentiment, but a rather negative anti-science tone, which merely continues the unnecessary and unproductive divide between the “hard” and “soft” sciences. Muriel could have written: The universe is made of stories AND of atoms.
The existence of stories does not exclude the existence of atoms. And vice-versa.
It is kind of a nice story, how the idea came about. As Kelly said, we have stories because we have atoms.