Character Quotes - Page 35

• 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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• 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

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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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• Every time I've built character, I've regretted it.

  Bill Watterson

  Built

  "The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury". Book by Bill Watterson, October 1992.

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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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• Authors also create lovable, friendly characters, then proceed to do terrible things to them, like throw them in unsightly librarian-controlled dungeons. This makes readers feel hurt and worried for the characters. The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren't the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Cute, Hurt, Party

  Brandon Sanderson (2016). “Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians”, p.164, Macmillan

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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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• 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

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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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• 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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• I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don't want any woman to look under the carpet because there's lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" comes closest to who I really am. I personally don't think there's one character who comes close... but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don't have a solid opinion about.

  Paul Newman

  Believe, Thinking, Bridges

  "Newman remains animated at 81". Craig Modderno, Reuters, June 12, 2006.

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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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• 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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• 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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• Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Loneliness, Political

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• The idea for Maximum Ride come from the earlier books of mine called When the Wind Blows and The Lake House, which also feature a character named Max who escapes from a quiet despicable school. Most of the similarities end there. Max and the other kids in Maximum Ride are not the same Max and kids featured in those two books. nor do Frannie and Kit play any part in Maximum Ride. I hope you enjoy the ride anyways.

  James Patterson

  Book, School, Kids

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• I picked up one of the books and flipped through it. Don't get me wrong, I like reading. But some books should come with warning labels: Caution: contains characters and plots guaranteed to induce sleepiness. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery after ingesting more than one chapter. Has been known to cause blindness, seizures and a terminal loathing of literature. Should only be taken under the supervision of a highly trained English teacher. Preferably one who grades on the curve.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Teacher, Book, Taken

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• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.

  Charles de Gaulle

  Inspirational, Motivational, Adversity

  Charles de Gaulle (1960). “The Edge of the Sword”, New York : Criterion Books

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• Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love

  Erich Fromm

  Love, Attitude, World

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• All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes -- characters even -- caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.

  Diane Setterfield

  Morning, Book, Reading

  Diane Setterfield (2007). “The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel”, p.289, Simon and Schuster

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• ...the characters in my books all resemble each other. They live, with minor variations, the same moments, the same perils, and when I speak of them, my language, which is inspired by them, repeats the same poems in the same tone.

  Jean Genet

  Book, Variation, Tone

  Jean Genet, Bernard Frechtman (1994). “Funeral Rites”, p.97, Grove Press

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• Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Writing, Glasses, Want Something

  "Uncovering the secrets of storytelling" by Paul Willis, www.cnn.com. December 19, 2008.

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• Anyhow, I've learned one thing now. You only really get to know people when you've had a jolly good row with them. Then and then only can you judge their true characters!

  Anne Frank

  People, Judging, I've Learned

  Anne Frank (1993). “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl”, Bantam

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• Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind's capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don't; because they all stand unequal and powerless before us.

  Matthew Scully

  Kindness, Animal, Rights

  Matthew Scully (2011). “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy”, p.14, Souvenir Press

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