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

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  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

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• Characterization requires a constant back-and-forth between the exterior events of the story and the inner life of the character.

  David Corbett

  Character, Events, Stories

  David Corbett (2013). “The Art of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV”, p.41, Penguin

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• Characterization is not divorced from plot, not a coat of paint you slap on after the structure of events is already built. Rather characterization is inseparable from plot.

  Nancy Kress

  Events, Plot, Coats

  Nancy Kress (2004). “Dynamic Characters”, p.4, Writer's Digest Books

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• 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

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• 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

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• Characterization is integral to the theatrical experience.

  Robert Ludlum

  Theatrical

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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)

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• 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”

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• 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”

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• 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

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• Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Philosophy, Effort, Romance

  Alfred North Whitehead (2012). “Nature and Life”, p.9, Cambridge University Press

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• I would say plotting is the most difficult thing for me. Characterization is only hard because sometimes I feel I get so interested in it that I want to talk too much about the characters and that slows the story down. So I say, "Hey, people want to find out what's going to happen next, they don't want to listen to you spout off about this or that person." But I think even the bad guy deserves to tell his side of the story.

  Stephen King

  Character, Writing, Thinking

  Stephen King, Tim Underwood, Chuck Miller (1988). “Bare bones: conversations on terror with Stephen King”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• 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.

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• It is not unusual to hear a religious leader, a philosopher, or a poet refer to man as having a divine spark within him. Such characterizations infer that man possesses great abilities and potentials. We are frequently admonished to develop our capabilities, reach out, and set high goals for ourselves.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Religious, Men, Generosity

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• One thing about beginning writers is that they don't really always know their own strengths and weaknesses - you might think you're bad at characterization, but that might really be because of some issue you're having with another element, which is making it hard for you to express character in a convincing way.

  Jeff VanderMeer

  Character, Thinking, Issues

  Source: www.barnesandnoble.com

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• With Batman&Robin, the fourth entry in the recent Batman movie series, the profitable franchise appears poised to take a nosedive. This film, which places yet another actor in the batsuit, has all the necessary hallmarks of a sorry sequel - pointless, plodding plotting; asinine action; clueless, comatose characterization; and dumb dialogue. Batman&Robin moves at a dizzying pace, yet goes absolutely nowhere.

  James Berardinelli

  Sorry, Moving, Clueless

  "Batman and Robin (United States, 1997)". Movie Review, www.reelviews.net.

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• I think I've learned a lot about how to make movies, and particularly about how to edit movies by thinking about how similar problems are resolved in other forms. The issues in all forms are the same in an abstract sense, aren't they? Characterization, abstraction, metaphor, passage of time... Whether it's a movie, a novel, a play, or a poem, those issues exist. And each person resolves them differently.

  Frederick Wiseman

  Thinking, Play, Issues

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• But eventually I moved the portraiture into the smaller clay things which gave them more of a caricature look to them, rather than a characterization.

  Joe Fafard

  Clay, Looks, Portraiture

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• I think with any characterization there's a point where you empathize, no matter how much of a deviance his or her actions may be from your understanding of humanity.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  Thinking, Understanding, Humanity

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• I think I made a mistake with [Jane] Austen by reading all six in a row. There are similarities to the plots so by the time I got to the last one I could anticipate what was happening too easily. But her characterizations are amazing.

  Stephen Dobyns

  Mistake, Reading, Thinking

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• I reject totally the characterization of a transwoman as a mutilated man. First, that formulation presumes that men born into that sex assignment are not mutilated. Second, it once again sets up the feminist as the prosecutor of trans people. If there is any mutilation going on in this scene, it is being done by the feminist police force who rejects the lived embodiment of transwomen. That very accusation is a form of "mutilation" as is all transphobic discourse such as these.

  Judith Butler

  Sex, Men, People

  Source: transadvocate.com

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• Of course, there are hundreds of novels and authors that have influenced me. But to choose three, they are: Stephen King/The Stand (and really most of his books); Anne Rice/The Witching Hour; and Pat Conroy/The Prince of Tides. These authors write my favorite kind of book - epic feel, gorgeous prose, unique characters, and a pace that keeps you turning the pages. From them, I learned a lot about characterization, pacing, prose, voice, and originality.

  Megan Chance

  Kings, Book, Character

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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