Character Quotes - Page 16

• But our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country-but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Country, Fear And Loathing, Insane

  Hunter S. Thompson (2011). “The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time”, p.535, Simon and Schuster

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• 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

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• 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.

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• Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone.

  Jennifer Weiner

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• 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”

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• 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

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• If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Men, Abuse, Personality Flaws

  'Vanity Fair' (1847-8) ch. 19

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• I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.

  Georges Simenon

  Brother, Age, Trying

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• No, the secret is that there's no reward and we have to endure our characters and our natures as best we can, because no amount of experience or insight is going to rectify our deficiencies, our self-regard, or our cupidity. We have to learn that our desires do not find any real echo in the world. We have to accept that the people we love do not love us, or not in the way we hope. We have to accept betrayal and disloyalty, and, hardest of all, that someone is finer than we are in character or intelligence.

  Sándor Márai

  Betrayal, Real, Echoes

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• There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal.

  Jane Austen

  Perception, Natural, Penetration

  Jesse Zuba, Jane Austen (2009). “Persuasion - Jane Austen”, p.100, Infobase Publishing

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• 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

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• Wisdom is the right application of knowledge; and true education...is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character.

  David O. McKay

  Noble, Development, Godlike

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• How he could be a good user of LSD," I asked, "And know about the spiritual dimension - all that sort of thing - and still be a crook? I don't understand." "Then it's time you did. Psychedelic drugs don't change you - they don't change you character - unless you want to be changed. They enable change; they can't impose it.

  Alexander Shulgin

  Spiritual, Drug, Crooks

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• It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Laughing, Make Me Laugh, Defects

  W. Somerset Maugham (2012). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.104, Courier Corporation

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• Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

  Confucius

  Inspirational, Thank You, Kindness

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• ... character reigns preeminent in determining potential.

  Laura Hillenbrand

  Reign

  Laura Hillenbrand (2003). “Seabiscuit: An American Legend”, p.408, Ballantine Books

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• In our postmodern culture which is TV dominated, image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly irrelevant.

  David F. Wells

  Personality, Tvs, Culture

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• Well, this is a story about books." About books?" About accursed books, about a man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of anovel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind." You talk like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel." That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Dream, Betrayal, Book

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2005). “The Shadow of the Wind”, p.171, Penguin

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• Thus, when we plead for the gift of charity, we aren't asking for lovely feelings toward someone who bugs us or someone who has injured or wounded us. We are actually pleading for our very natures to be changed, for our character and disposition to become more and more like the Savior's, so that we literally feel as He would feel and thus do what He would do.

  Sheri L. Dew

  Lds, Feelings, Lovely

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• There is one province in which, sooner or later, virtually everyone gets dealt a leading role--hero, heroine, or villain.... Unlike the slight implications of quotidian dilemmas that confront the average citizen in other areas of life ... the stakes in this realm could not be higher. For chances are that at some point along the line you will hold in your hands another person's heart. There is no greater responsibility on the planet. However you contend with this fragile organ, which pounds or seizes in accordance with your caprice, will take your full measure.

  Lionel Shriver

  Hero, Responsibility, Heart

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• Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)

  Edward Abbey

  Beautiful, Way

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• I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Country, Reading, Knowing

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• It is attitude, infinitely more than circumstance, that determines the quality of life. Life is often quite tough, challenging us to choose between seemingly esoteric, intangible ideals and getting goodies or good vibes right now. You have character when you most often choose ideals.

  Laura Schlessinger

  Attitude, Challenges, Quality

  Dr. Laura Schlessinger (2009). “How Could You Do That?!: Abdication of Character, Courage, Consci”, p.13, Harper Collins

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• People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.

  Joan Didion

  Spring, Responsibility, Self

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Jul 09, 2011

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• When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Writing, Want Something, Creative

  Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.189, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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