Character Quotes - Page 33

• Clever's not enough to hold me - I want characters who are more than devices to be moved about for Effect.

  Laura Anne Gilman

  Clever, Want, Enough

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• Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a struggle to contain the natural impulses of the body and spirit, and that what we call character represents only the degree to which we are successful in this endeavor.

  Anita Shreve

  Struggle, Successful, Degrees

  Anita Shreve (2003). “All He Ever Wanted: A Novel”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• That, my dear, is what makes a character interesting, their secrets.

  Kate Morton

  Interesting, Secret, Dear

  Kate Morton (2009). “The Forgotten Garden: A Novel”, p.350, Simon and Schuster

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• Because in fantasy perhaps more than in any other genre, the character is rewarded for making the right choices and punished for making the bad. Ask Boromir.

  R. A. Salvatore

  Choices, Fantasy, Genre

  Philip Athans, R.A. Salvatore (2010). “The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction: 6 Steps to Writing and Publishing Your Bestseller!”, p.7, Adams Media

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• A comedy isn't about being funny," said Mrs. Baker. "We talked about this before." "A comedy is about character who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all. That's how I know." "Suppose you can't see it?" "That's the daring part," said Mrs. Baker.

  Gary D. Schmidt

  Bakers, May, Comedy

  Gary D. Schmidt (2009). “The Wednesday Wars”, p.262, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For the future, I shall rely only upon those elements of my character which I have tested. Who would ever have said that I should find pleasure in shedding tears? That I should love the man who proves to me that I am nothing more than a fool?

  Stendhal

  Men, Tears, Fool

  Stendhal (2016). “The Red and the Black”, p.50, Tyché

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• If you thought you were trying to find out more about it because you're gonna get an answer to some deep philosophical question...you may be wrong! It may be that you can't get an answer to that particular question by finding out more about the character of nature. But my interest in science is to simply find out about the world.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Philosophical, Trying, Answers

  Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.115, Princeton University Press

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• It's possible to overlook character flaws of in-laws for the simple reason that you feel neither responsible for them nor genetically implicated.

  Richard Russo

  Simple, Law, Reason

  Richard Russo (2017). “Straight Man”, p.254, Atlantic Books

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• I used to think that God's gifts were on shelves one above the other and that the taller we grew in Christian character, the more easily we should reach them. I find now that God's gifts are on shelves one beneath the other and that is not a question of growing taller, but of stooping lower and that we have to go down, always down to get His best ones.

  F.B. Meyer

  Christian, Thinking, Growing

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• So you see,' said Stepan Arkadyich, 'you're a very wholesome man. That is your virtue and your defect. You have a wholesome character, and you want all of life to be made up of wholesome phenomena, but that doesn't happen. So you despise the activity of public service because you want things always to correspond to their aim, and that doesn't happen. You also want the activity of the individual man always to have an aim, that love and family life always be one. And that doesn't happen. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Men, Light, Want

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• He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its odor, its form, its title. What he loved in a manuscript was its old illegible date, the bizarre and strange Gothic characters, the heavy gilding which loaded its drawings. It was its pages covered with dust — dust of which he breathed the sweet and tender perfume with delight.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Sweet, Book, Dust

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• Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot". ~Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1958, spoken by the character Holly Golightly

  Truman Capote

  Hollies, Tiffany's, Breakfast

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• What I love in a woman is not what she is in and for herself, but the side of herself she turns towards me, what she is for me. I love her as character in our common love story. what wuld Hamlet be without the castle at Elsinore, without Ophelia, without all the concrete situations he goes through, what would he be without the text of his part? What would be left but an empty, dumb, illusory essence?

  Milan Kundera

  Essence, Dumb, Stories

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• Over and over I feel as if my characters know who they are, and what happens to them, and where they have been and where they will go, and what they are capable of doing, but they need me to write it down for them because their handwriting is so bad.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Needs, Feels

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• If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Inspirational, Believe, Catholic

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• What moralists describe as the mysteries of the human heart are solely the deceiving thoughts, the spontaneous impulses of self-regard. The sudden changes in character, about which so much has been said, are instinctive calculations for the furtherance of our own pleasures. Seeing himself now in his fine clothes, his new gloves and shoes, Eugène de Rastignac forgot his noble resolve. Youth, when it swerves toward wrong, dares not look in the mirror of conscience; maturity has already seen itself there. That is the whole difference between the two phases of life.

  Honore de Balzac

  Heart, Maturity, Mirrors

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• Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances." Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Men, Thinking, Good Man

  Megan Whalen Turner (2010). “A Conspiracy of Kings”, Greenwillow

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• Respect your characters, even the ­minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's.

  Sarah Waters

  Art, Hero, Thinking

  "Sarah Waters's rules for writers" by Sarah Waters, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2010.

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• There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot.

  S.M. Stirling

  Book, Opinion, Idiot

  "Conquistador". Book by S.M. Stirling, 2003.

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• If you are well-mannered towards those whose views are similar to yours, you may be said to exhibit a fairly good character. But, if you behave properly wit those holding divergent views from you or who criticize you, then you deserve to be credited with having an excellent character. (p. 99)

  Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

  Views, Divergent, May

  Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (2014). “Spirit of Islam”, p.7, Goodword Books

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• It was nice to see someone who appreciated her for her character, no matter how disgusted Christian was by the idea of ANYONE dating his aunt. And I actually kind of liked seeing Christian so obviously tormented. It was good for him.

  Richelle Mead

  Christian, Nice, Aunt

  Richelle Mead (2010). “Last Sacrifice: A Vampire Academy Novel”, p.209, Penguin

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• True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others.

  E. O. Wilson

  Strong, Integrity, Adversity

  "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge". Book by E. O. Wilson, 1998.

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• The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.

  Aristotle

  Government, Democracy, Doe

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.389, Simon and Schuster

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• And if Henry Higgins is not the most reprehensible character ever written for the stage, that's only because somewhere, somehow, someone is composing a musical biography of Ronald Reagan

  Steve Kluger

  Musical, Biographies, Stage

  Steve Kluger (2009). “My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park”, p.38, Penguin

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• What are you reading?" Owen asks. "Charlotte's Web," Liz says. "It's really sad. One of the main characters just died." "You ought to read the book from end to beginning," Owen jokes. "That way, no one dies, and it's always a happy ending.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Reading, Book, Liz

  Gabrielle Zevin (2016). “Elsewhere”, p.149, Bloomsbury Publishing

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