Character Quotes - Page 14

• In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Love, Heartbreak, Feelings

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.20, A&C Black

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• Rebellion is necessary for development of character.

  Cynthia Voigt

  Development, Rebellion

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• One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

  Mahatma Gandhi (1927). “Young India”

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• A man kept his character even when he was insane.

  Graham Greene

  Men, Insane

  Graham Greene (1973). “The Collected Edition: The ministry of fear”

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• I think I am, therefore, I am... I think.

  George Carlin

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  "Napalm and Silly Putty". Book by George Carlin, 2001.

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• Times will change for the better when you change.

  Maxwell Maltz

  Motivational, Work, Life Changing

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• And he absolutely had to find her at once to tell her that he adored her, but the large audience before him separated him from the door, and the notes reaching him through a succession of hands said that she was not available; that she was inaugurating a fire; that she had married an american businessman; that she had become a character in a novel; that she was dead.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Fire, Doors, Hands

  Vladimir Nabokov (1992). “Pale fire”

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• To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Positive, Wisdom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.207, Penguin

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• We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing in life, really. And I think we are all striving for it in different ways. I also believe very, very strongly that everybody is the hero/heroine of his/her own life. I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters

  Maeve Binchy

  Believe, Hero, Loss

  FaceBook post by Maeve Binchy from Mar 24, 2012

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• You think that you are an iconoclast, but you’re not. You just move, or replace what you cannot have. If you fail at something, you retreat into something else. Nothing changes you.... I left you because I knew I could never change you. You would stand in the room so still sometimes, as if the greatest betrayal of yourself would be to reveal one more inch of your character.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Break Up, Breakup, Betrayal

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• A novel is not an allegory.... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.

  Azar Nafisi

  Heart, Destiny, Breathing

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.111, Random House

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• Quentin Tarantino was talking about Ordell a little bit, and I was like, "I'm sure Ordell is one of those people who thought Superfly was the greatest movie ever made." So he cuts his hair and straightens it, but he never has enough money to maintain it perfectly. So it's kind of nappy around the edges, straight and kind of puffed up. That's why he'd always keep it in a ponytail or a braid. We were just having fun and creating a distinctive character.

  Samuel L. Jackson

  Fun, Cutting, People

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• There are essential and inessential insanities. The later are solar in character, the former are linked to the moon.

  Tom Robbins

  Moon, Insanity, Essentials

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• My characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They're rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.

  Robert E. Howard

  Hate, Real, Men

  Letter to Harold Preece, c. January or February 1928.

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• But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.

  Dodie Smith

  Real, Book, Pride

  Dodie Smith (2017). “I Capture the Castle: Young Adult Edition”, p.65, St. Martin's Griffin

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• To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Winning, Order

  Michel de Montaigne (1948). “Selections from the essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne”

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• I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.

  Saul Bellow

  Fate, Men, Doors

  1953 The Adventures of Augie March.

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• A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.

  John F. Kennedy

  Wise, Successful, Political

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• We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves. If it wasn't for our longing for these things, I doubt the novel or the short story would exist in its current form. I'm not going to say much more on the topic. Just remember: In dictatorships, only one person is really allowed to speak. And when I write a book or a story, I too am the only one speaking, no matter how I hide behind my characters.

  Junot Diaz

  Dream, Book, Writing

  "Questions for Junot Díaz". Interview with Meghan O'Rourke, www.slate.com. April 8, 2008.

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• Age certainly hadn't conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russian writers have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.

  Haruki Murakami

  Smart, Winter, Thinking

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Sep 25, 2015

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• The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves. Self-government means self-support.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Mean, Government, Self

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• Any excuse for non-performance, no matter how valid, weakens character.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Matter, Excuse, Performances

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• Directors are always changing things at the last minute. Actors will do a scene, and the director will say, ‘Okay, that was perfect, but this time, Bob, instead of saying “What’s for dinner?” you say, “Wait a minute! Benzene is actually a hydrocarbon!” And say it with a Norwegian accent. Also, we think maybe your character should have no arms.

  Dave Barry

  Thinking, Should Have, Perfect

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• I was supposed to write a romantic comedy, but my characters broke up.

  Ann Brashares

  Writing, Comedy, Broke Up

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• The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Ambition, Pride

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2800, Delphi Classics

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