Character Quotes - Page 15

• I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story.

  Isak Dinesen

  Writing, Feelings, Stories

  6 Copy quote

• A man with no enemies is a man with no character.

  Paul Newman

  Men, Enemy

  "Paul Newman: A Life in Pictures". Book edited by Yann-Brice Dherbier and Pierre-Henri Verlhac, October 19, 2006.

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Graham Greene

  Men, Insane

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

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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”

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  95 Copy quote

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Matter, Excuse, Performances

  4 Copy quote

• People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.

  James A. Baldwin

  Names, People, Tears

  23 Copy quote

• There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Real, Hands, Giving

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.

  Edna O'Brien

  Tree, Ireland And The Irish, Looks

  32 Copy quote

• A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.

  Orson Scott Card

  Mean, Doe

  Orson Scott Card (2010). “Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint: Proven advice and timeless techniques for creating compelling characters by an award-winning author”, p.7, Writer's Digest Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

  Albert Einstein

  Courage, Honesty, Integrity

  "Our Goal Unity, but Germans Are Unfit", Free World, no. 4, 370-371, October 8, 1944.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.

  Jennifer Weiner

  Morning, Heart, Stories

  www.jenniferweiner.com. May, 2002.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it's a bit like coming to the end of a book. The plot's in its thickest, all the characters are in a mess, but you can see that there aren't fifty pages left, and you know that the finish can't be far off.

  Herman Wouk

  Book, Thinking, Plot

  HERMAN WOUK (1955). “MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense I would take their protection with me. The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey.

  Sidney Poitier

  Home, Journey, Feelings

  14 Copy quote

• There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters.

  Anthony Burgess

  Writing, Facts, Moral

  "A Clockwork Orange".

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write more entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind, and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page.

  Eudora Welty

  Writing, Heart, Soul

  Eudora Welty (1995). “One Writer's Beginnings”, p.100, Harvard University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of course I know that the twins are only words on a page, and I'm certainly not the sort of writer who talks to his characters or harbours any illusions about the creative process. But at the same time, I think it's juvenile and arrogant when literary writers compulsively remind their readers that the characters aren't real. People know that already. The challenge is to make an intelligent reader suspend disbelief, to seduce them into the reality of a narrative.

  Michel Faber

  Real, Writing, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• No people can be bound to acknowledge the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the united States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency

  George Washington

  Christian, Independent, Men

  George Washington (2011). “Washington's Political Legacies: With a Biographical Outline of His Life and Character”, p.58, Cambridge University Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• And what is true education? It is awakening a love for truth; giving a just sense of duty; opening the eyes of the soul to the great purpose and end of life. It is not so much giving words, as thoughts; or mere maxims, as living principles. It is not teaching to be honest, because 'honesty is the best policy'; but because it is right. It is teaching the individual to love the good, for the sake of the good; to be virtuous in action because one is so in heart; to love and serve God supremely, not from fear, but from delight in his perfect character.

  David O. McKay

  Honesty, Teaching, Heart

  11 Copy quote

• We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Education, Giving, Goal

  Martin Luther King (1992). “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr”, p.124, Univ of California Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source