Protagonists Quotes - Page 8

• I always felt a little worm inside me: 'Now you need to write a novel with a woman protagonist.

  Carlos Fuentes

  Writing, Needs, Littles

  "The Latin master" by Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. May 4, 2001.

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• In fact, Guerra based his story on the diaries of two explorers, German Theodor Koch-Grunberg and American Richard Evans Schultes. There work is some of the only documentation of cultures that have since vanished. But Guerra did not want white men to be his protagonists.

  Tom Cole

  Men, White Man, Two

  "'Serpent' Film Explores, Revives Lost Cultural Knowledge For Colombians". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with Tom Cole, www.npr.org. February 21, 2016.

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• There is a social contract in "Fight Club" and in "Choke" where the protagonist has deceived a whole bunch of people. In "Choke" it's all of these people who think that they've saved his life, and really care about him because they've embraced him and they've been his saviors. In "Fight Club" it's all of these people who are dying of various diseases, and they thought that Edward Norton was also dying so they allowed him really strong pent-up emotions.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Strong, Fighting, Thinking

  "Chuck Palahnuik On 'Choke'". Interview with Cole Smithey, www.colesmithey.com. September 24, 2008.

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• Consider the different narrative styles within the story, and the glee with which the "moralistic narrator" celebrates Aschenbach's fall - maybe, then, this is a hostile verdict and the international fame is warranted after all (given that Mann modeled his protagonist so closely on himself, it would be quite odd if he had intended Aschenbach's literary inferiority to be a fixed part of the interpretation).

  Philip Kitcher

  Fall, Style, Narrators

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Hwang Jung-eun is one of the brightest stars of the new South Korean generation - she's Han Kang's favourite, and the novel we're publishing scooped the prestigious Bookseller's Award, for critically-acclaimed fiction that also has a wide popular appeal. She stands out for her focus on social minorities - her protagonists are slum inhabitants, trans women, orphans - and for the way she melds this hard-edged social critique with obliquely fantastical elements and offbeat dialogue.

  Deborah Smith

  Stars, Awards, Focus

  Source: thequietus.com

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• Femininity, yes, effectively there is more in The First Man, not only in terms of women but stylistically, in its elements, the notes he wrote. You can see a real love story in it, a childhood love story, [Albert] Camus' first. Meursault [protagonist of The Outsider] and Marie were never up to much really. There is Dora in The Just and others in his plays, but they aren't so well known.

  Catherine Camus

  Real, Men, Play

  Source: www.spikemagazine.com

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• I feel like I have had to catch up to the art I've made, and learn from the protagonists I have written, especially in relation to gender.

  Vivek Shraya

  Art, Gender, Made

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• We tend to think of orphans as being the protagonist of stories we read when we're kids, and yet here you are: you're an adult, you're supposed to manage, you're supposed to get over it, you're supposed to go on with your life, and you feel like a lost child.

  Sandra Cisneros

  Children, Kids, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• My parents are amazing. When I said I wanted to go into film, they didn't understand it, but they were incredibly supportive. But growing up, I absolutely did have that feeling of, "Wow, somebody just gave me up." That was infused in The Secret Life of Bees too - the protagonist wanting unconditional love from her dead but much-imagined mother.

  Gina Prince-Bythewood

  Mother, Growing Up, Unconditional Love

  Source: www.mtv.com

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• The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.

  Haruki Murakami

  People, Tragedy, Quality

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• As Jane Austen might have put it: It is a truth universally acknowledged that young protagonists in search of adventure must ditch their parents.

  Philip Pullman

  Writing, Adventure, Parent

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• I learned another thing, which is that just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story.

  Miriam Toews

  Mean, Ashes, Stories

  Miriam Toews (2014). “All My Puny Sorrows”, p.173, Faber & Faber

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• If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another.

  Donald Miller

  Real, Nice, Character

  Donald Miller (2009). “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life”, p.68, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• I'm drawn to characters who bear similarities to the protagonists in myths and legends. (...)

  Alan Lee

  Character, Legends, Bears

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• A conventional ‘success’ story is one where, with each next, the protagonist has more money, more respect, and more possessions. I’d like to suggest an alternative ‘success’ story – one where, with each next, the protagonist is closer to finding that spot where he’s no longer held back by his heart, and he explodes with talent, and his character blossoms, and the gift he has to offer the world is apparent.

  Po Bronson

  Heart, Character, Alternatives

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• When I wrote the first [Bond novel] in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened... when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, [James Bond] is the dullest name I ever heard.

  Ian Fleming

  Men, Names, Dull

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• A criminal trial is like a Russian novel: it starts with exasperating slowness as the characters are introduced to a jury, then there are complications in the form of minor witnesses, the protagonist finally appears and contradictions arise to produce drama, and finally as both jury and spectators grow weary and confused the pace quickens, reaching its climax in passionate final argument.

  Clifford Irving

  Drama, Confused, Character

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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