Character Quotes - Page 39

• You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.

  Joseph Heller

  Taken, Intelligent, Appreciate

  Joseph Heller (1999). “Catch-22: A Novel”, p.389, Simon and Schuster

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• If were were in a film, the villain would turn out to be the least-expected person. But as we aren't in a film, I'd go for the character who tried to strangle you.

  Kerstin Gier

  Film, Villain, Turns

  Kerstin Gier (2011). “Ruby Red”, p.269, Macmillan

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• You put a spell on the dog," I said as we left the house. "Just a small one," said Nightingale. "So magic is real," I said. "Which makes you a...what?" "A wizard." "Like Harry Potter?" Nightingale sighed. "No," he said. "Not like Harry Potter." "In what way?" "I'm not a fictional character," said Nightingale.

  Ben Aaronovitch

  Dog, Real, House

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• There is one thing alone that stands the brunt of life throughout its course; a quiet conscience.

  Euripides

  Life, Success, Solitude

  Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles (1960). “The Complete Greek Tragedies: Euripides”

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• Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.

  Julian Barnes

  Attitude, Tragedy, Doe

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• Here's what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart. I want a novel so poetic that I do not have to turn to the standby anthologies of poetry to satisfy that itch for music, for perfection and economy of phrasing, for exactness of tone. Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food or drink because a writer has possessed me, crazed with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next.

  Pat Conroy

  Book, Heart, Thinking

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• Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her current life. What I’ve noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it’s so wonderfully fair.

  Mindy Kaling

  Girl, Funny Inspirational, Stars

  Mindy Kaling (2011). “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)”, p.31, Three Rivers Press

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• If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Lying, Answers, Sincere

  "On the Heights of Despair". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1934.

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• I can't imagine how anyone can say: "I'm weak," and then remain so. After all, if you know it, why not fight against it, why not try to train your character? The answer was: "Because it's so much easier not to!

  Anne Frank

  Fighting, Trying, Why Not

  Anne Frank, General Press (2016). “The Diary of a Young Girl”, p.165, GENERAL PRESS

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• If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.

  Dr. Seuss

  Funny Inspirational, Party, History

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• In writing, as in life, always be true to your character.

  Laurie Faria Stolarz

  Writing, Being True

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• Acts of bravery don't always take place on battlefields. They can take place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and yes, your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.

  Anna Quindlen

  Courage, Heart, Voice

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• Every story starts with an idea, but it is the characters that move this idea forward.

  Michael Scott

  Moving, Ideas, Stories

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• Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying.

  John Green

  Real, Support, Dying

  John Green (2008). “Looking for Alaska”, p.169, Penguin

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• A person of “good character” was one who acted in accordance with the expectations of his community

  Sheena Iyengar

  Expectations, Community, Persons

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• You only learn when you give your whole being to something. When you give your whole being to mathematics,you learn; but when you are in a state of contradiction, when you do not want to learn but are forced to learn, then it becomes merely a process of accumulation. To learn is like reading a novel with innumerable characters; it requires your full attention, not contradictory attention.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Reading, Giving, Attention

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• Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.

  George Eliot

  Cutting, Body, May

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.480, Penguin

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• (Talks about a school production) 'There was one solo; but it was a guy. It was this character called 'Freddy Fast Talk' and it was the bad guy. I didn't care, I was like I will dress up like a guy, I want to sing that song. And so I remembered we drew on eyebrows, and I had like a moustache,and we put all my hair up in this hat. So I dressed like a guy and sang the solo.

  Taylor Swift

  Song, School, Hair

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• It's a funny thing, character, the way it brands people as they age, rising from within to leave its scar.

  Kate Morton

  Funny Things, People, Age

  Kate Morton (2011). “The Distant Hours: A Novel”, p.54, Simon and Schuster

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• I write. I imagine. The act of imagining in itself enlivens me. I am not frozen and paralyzed before the predator. I invent characters. At times I feel as if I am digging up people from the ice in which reality enshrouded them, but maybe, more than anything else, it is myself that I am now digging up.

  David Grossman

  Writing, Reality, Ice

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• Someone once said anyone can be great under rosy circumstances, but the true test of character is measured by how well a person makes decisions during difficult times.

  Jack Gantos

  Decision, Tests, Difficult Times

  Jack Gantos (2002). “Hole in My Life”, p.8, Macmillan

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• I can't deceive myself out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide.

  Sylvia Plath

  Suicide, Real, Fate

  "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath".

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• I inherited that penchant for intellectualism, a character flaw that these days can only be thoroughly eradicated by getting Z’ed up.

  John Green

  Flaws, These Days, Intellectualism

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• The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older.

  Haruki Murakami

  Pain, Years, Age

  "Norwegian Wood". Book by Haruki Murakami, Random House, pp. 152-153, 2011.

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• I'm sorry, Mother. It's just that five days of flying with these characters has made me crawl right to the edge of sanity.' 'I fell over the edge.' Karen said. 'I jumped,' Walter added, 'And I can't seem to climb back up.

  Bryan Davis

  Mother, Sorry, Flying

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