Characterization Quotes

• Characterization is an accident that flows out of action and dialogue.

  Jack Woodford

  Writing, Flow, Action

  Jack Woodford (2012). “Trial and Error”, p.177, askmar publishing

  48 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

  Harper Lee

  Powerful, Positivity, Sunshine

  Harold Bloom, Harper Lee (2010). “Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird”, p.81, Infobase Publishing

  93 Copy quote

  Show source

• The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Plato, Philosophical, Knowledge

  Process and Reality pt. 2, ch. 1 (1929)

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• An attempt to write nothing but characterization will soon bog down; I for one don't want to have somebody tell me about someone else.

  Daniel Keys Moran

  Writing, Want, Bogs

  22 Copy quote

• There are technical tricks that may help you create more effective characters. My approach to characterization is not at all technical. I can't really analyze how I do it, but I am sure of one thing. To write convincing characters, you must possess the ability to think yourself into someone else's skin.

  Juliet Marillier

  Writing, Character, Thinking

  3 Copy quote

• My theory of characterization is basically this: Put some dirt on a hero, and put some sunshine on the villain, one brush stroke of beauty on the villain.

  Justin Cronin

  Hero, Sunshine, Dirt

  "Justin Cronin, author of The Passage, on book two of his vampire trilogy". Interview with Todd VanDerWerff, www.avclub.com. November 1, 2012.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

  Harper Lee

  Dad, War, Father

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home.

  Harper Lee

  Home, Fighting, Yankees

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Characterization is integral to the theatrical experience.

  Robert Ludlum

  Theatrical

  5 Copy quote

• I'm not interested in plots. I'm interested only in the characterization of people and what they do.

  Erskine Caldwell

  People, Plot, Not Interested

  Erskine Caldwell (1988). “Conversations with Erskine Caldwell”, p.182, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think my wife would take objection to any characterization of me as perfect.

  Peter Blair Henry

  Thinking, Perfect, Wife

  2 Copy quote

• The only time that I've adopted characterization again since that point, for my own albums, has been an album called "Outside" that I did with Brian Eno.

  David Bowie

  Albums, Brian, Adopted

  "David Bowie On The Ziggy Stardust Years: We Were Creating The 21st Century In 1971". Interview with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. January 11, 2016.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• By definition it uses and plays and delights in time. It delights in the interlacing of chronologies and the consequences of that interlacing. And those have personal and psychological expressions in a character. Aside from other issues of writing, psychological characterization is what narrative can do best.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Writing, Character, Expression

  Source: therumpus.net

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• In art and life we're always reading bodies and behaviors (and skies and skylines or whatever), constructing brief and shifting coherences, and I guess I want to capture that process of characterization and re-characterization instead of offering up a few stable, easily-summarized individuals.

  Ben Lerner

  Art, Reading, Offering

  Source: www.believermag.com

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn't mean they're going to be that way.

  Margaret Atwood

  Mean, People, May

  0 Copy quote

• I'm trying to make the case that the church can indeed, from within its own resources, move out of a false, and often a hateful, characterization of and set of attitudes toward gay and lesbian people.

  James Alison

  Attitude, Moving, Gay

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• Something that has always attracted me to even taking on the occupation of actor is the idea that I could be lucky enough to portray different characterizations from different places in the world, whether it's speaking another language or taking on a dialect and building a history from where they were born. I was very attracted to that concept, in becoming an actor.

  Lake Bell

  Ideas, Different, Lucky

  "Lake Bell on ‘Man Up’, Simon Pegg, ‘The Secret Life of Pets’, and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. November 12, 2015.

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think I'm very strong at dialogue, I think I'm very strong in characterization. I think sometimes I use dialogue and character work to cover weaknesses in my plotting.

  Kelly Sue DeConnick

  Strong, Character, Thinking

  Source: www.ew.com

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• Characterization in a play is like a blank check which the dramatist accords to the actor for him to fill in.

  Thornton Wilder

  Play, Actors, Checks

  Thornton Wilder (2014). “The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume T”, p.266, Theatre Communications Group

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can use the fun of the genre, but I also really wanted to come at it from the point of view of some really complex characterization. There was a lot that I wanted it to do, and I wanted it to be fun. It's fun, but it's not simple fun.

  Adrian Hodges

  Fun, Simple, Views

  Source: collider.com

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is no accident that Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot and other butchers of note took special pains early in their despotic careers to suppress religion and undermine the traditional family. Theophobes would find such a characterization truly horrifying, but it's true. This explains why theophobia - while popular in faculty lounges, journalism seminars and Hollywood bacchanals - has not and probably never will attract a public following of any appreciable influence or size.

  Tony Snow

  Pain, Careers, Special

  "Now, the Theophobes", www.foxnews.com. December 8, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Acting is characterization, the process of two entities merging-the actor and the role.

  George C. Scott

  Two, Acting, Roles

  9 Copy quote

• Instead of saying, ah, I don't have the money, just embrace it and do what we can do. And the scenes that we film and the characterizations in the scenes can come out interesting. And I really feel good about that, going into it.

  George Tillman, Jr.

  Interesting, Feel Good, Film

  Source: collider.com

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• I write about life as it exists within houses and on the streets. And there's nothing, hopefully, in any of my characterizations or in any of my plottings or in any of my valuations that doesn't ring true to life. I'm a novelist. I'm not a theoretician.

  Richard Grossman

  Writing, House, True Life

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• Usually when I put my focus on the pacing, the plot, the specific characterizations, - it's ironic - but then I actually increase my chances of writing something that moves people because I haven't become too self-conscious of the goal.

  Christopher Rice

  Moving, Writing, Self

  0 Copy quote