Character Quotes - Page 32

• We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, drastic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality. To know God, you only need to renounce one thing - your sense of division from God

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Ideas, Order, Individuality

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.183, A&C Black

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• We had the great good fortune and shortcomings of character that marked every generation that had never seen war.

  Joshua Ferris

  War, Generations, Fortune

  Joshua Ferris (2008). “Then We Came to the End”, p.58, Penguin UK

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• Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

  Ray Bradbury

  Running, Snow, Plot

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• I’m not sure I could trust a man who would bypass an Oreo in favor of vanilla wafers. It’s a fundamental character flaw, possibly a sign of true evil.

  Jonathan Maberry

  Men, True Evil, Oreos

  Jonathan Maberry (2015). “The Joe Ledger Series, Books 1-3: Patient Zero, The Dragon Factory, The King of Plagues”, p.18, St. Martin's Griffin

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• For just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.

  Lev Grossman

  Inspirational, Real, Doors

  Lev Grossman (2015). “The Magicians Trilogy”, p.264, Penguin

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• Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian Businessman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, United States, Agnostic

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• I wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn't grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Country, Growing Up, Moving

  Banana Yoshimoto (1995). “N.P.: A Novel”, p.87, Simon and Schuster

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• You build a character, a shell, and if you build it right, something comes to live inside it.

  Elizabeth Hand

  Shells, Ifs

  Elizabeth Hand (2010). “Illyria”, p.52, Penguin

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• My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.

  Jane Austen

  Desire, Littles, Trouble

  "Fictional character: Jane Austen". "Becoming Jane", 2007.

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• Sometimes suffering is just suffering,” she told Gus. “It doesn't make you stronger. It doesn't build character. It only hurts.

  Kate Jacobs

  Hurt, Suffering, Stronger

  Kate Jacobs (2008). “Comfort Food”, p.123, Penguin

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• Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Faces, Facts, Impression

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.20, Courier Corporation

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• This absurd, godless world is, then, peopled with men who think clearly and have ceased to hope. And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator.

  Albert Camus

  Thinking, Men, World

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.92, Vintage

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• and in that recurring dream, I found myself trapped in some sort of gigantic game of which I was unfamiliar with the rules; lost in a labyrinthine town of dark and damp, criss-crossing streets, ambiguous characters of uncertain authority having no idea of why I was there nor what I had to do, and where the first sign of the beginning of understanding was the wish to die.

  Franz Kafka

  Dream, Dark, Wish To Die

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• I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.

  David Levithan

  Writing, Plot, Stories

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.181, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• To feel our character, our personality, and our personal, hard-won history fade from being is to be exposed to whatever lies beneath these comforting, operational conveniences. What remains when the conscious and functioning self has been erased is mankind's fundamental condition – irrational, violent, guilt-wracked, despairing, and mad.

  Peter Straub

  Lying, Self, Mad

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• May I ask you what these questions tend?' 'Merely to the illustration of your character,' said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. 'I am trying to make it out.' 'And what is your success?' She shook her head. 'I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.

  Jane Austen

  Illustration, Trying, Different

  Jane Austen (2006). “The Complete Novels: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.327, Penguin

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• I like the idea of a writer being haunted by his own creation, especially if the writer resents the way the character defines him.

  Bret Easton Ellis

  Ideas, Way, Creation

  FaceBook post by Bret Easton Ellis from Oct 30, 2011

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• Yuki: What could I learn from a stupid cat like you? You didn't even know that Jason isn't really a bear! He's a character in a horror film!
  Kyo: So what if I didn't know? Like I'd waste my time watching some dumb movie about a bear!
  Yuki: You truly are an idiot...

  Natsuki Takaya

  Stupid, Cat, What If

  "Fruits Basket". Animation, Comedy, Drama, www.imdb.com. (2001 - ).

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• Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.

  Cassandra Clare

  Book, Want, Sometimes

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.216, Simon and Schuster

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• But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are "on" concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Play, Plot, Scene

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.100, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Classic author moment, "Oh dear, did I kill that character or not?

  Gail Carriger

  Classic, Moments, Dear

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• People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.

  Iris Murdoch

  Passion, Thinking, People

  "Fictional character: Iris Murdoch". "Iris", www.imdb.com. 2001.

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• In thy face I see the map of honour, truth and loyalty.

  William Shakespeare

  Loyalty, Truth, Maps

  William Shakespeare, Isaac Reed (1813). “The Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.486

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• We all suffer alone in the real world. True empathy's impossible. But if a piece of fiction can alow us imaginatively to identify with a character's pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with their own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple.

  David Foster Wallace

  Pain, Real, Simple

  "How Emmanuel Carrère Reinvented Nonfiction" by Wyatt Mason, www.nytimes.com. March 2, 2017.

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• There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet.

  George Eliot

  Drama, Creating, Quiet

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch”, p.210, Booklassic

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