Character Quotes - Page 40

• When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.

  Edna O'Brien

  Tree, Ireland And The Irish, Looks

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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 write - and read - for the sake of the story... My basic test for any story is: 'Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end itself?

  Ayn Rand

  Real, Writing, Events

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.10, Penguin

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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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• Any excuse, no matter how valid, only weakens the character.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Matter, Excuse

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• There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters.

  Anthony Burgess

  Writing, Facts, Moral

  "A Clockwork Orange".

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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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• Of course I know that the twins are only words on a page, and I'm certainly not the sort of writer who talks to his characters or harbours any illusions about the creative process. But at the same time, I think it's juvenile and arrogant when literary writers compulsively remind their readers that the characters aren't real. People know that already. The challenge is to make an intelligent reader suspend disbelief, to seduce them into the reality of a narrative.

  Michel Faber

  Real, Writing, Thinking

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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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• We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Education, Giving, Goal

  Martin Luther King (1992). “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr”, p.124, Univ of California Press

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• I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.

  Marilyn Monroe

  Love, Inspiring, Honesty

  Marilyn Monroe, Roger G. Taylor (1983). “Marilyn Monroe in her own words”, Putnam Pub Group

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• For all the days of our lives," we finished and I felt a little like a character in one of my grandma's soap operas.

  Ally Carter

  Grandma, Opera, Littles

  Ally Carter (2007). “I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You”, Hyperion

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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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• I might as well enquire,” replied she, “why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?

  Jane Austen

  Pride, Offending, Design

  Jane Austen (1819). “Pride and Prejudice: A Novel”, p.127

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• Women without children are also the best of mothers,often, with the patience,interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply into the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortuante who feels witnessed as a peron,outside relationships with parents by another adult.

  Louise Erdrich

  Daughter, Mother, Children

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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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• 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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