Characters Quotations

When you are on assignment, you stick to the facts, limit your vision, and often cut out the most revealing material. There is no texture, no shades of gray. In fiction, you can bring the reader on the perilous journey with your characters as they discover that war is more like a wilderness of mirrors, full of danger and uncertainty.

Before I start, I trick myself into thinking I know what's going to happen in the story, but the characters have ideas of their own, and I always go with the character's choices. Most of the time I discover plot twists and directions that are better than what I originally had planned.

When I started to write realistic, real fiction, the voices that were the strongest for me - the characters that I heard, the people that I knew - were the ones from my childhood.

Quite casually I wander into my plot, poke around with my characters for a while, then amble off, leaving no moral proved and no reader improved.

All the best novels are about one thing: how we go on. The characters must survive the fallout of their own cowardice, folly, denial or misguided passion. They squander what matters most, and still they pick up the pieces.

I'm so excited to be a part of 'Falling Skies' and to see people enjoying what we've been working on for almost two years. The fact that I get to represent part of my heritage within this amazing group of characters makes me that much more proud!

Somehow super power and hero are so synonymous that they get combined into one word, 'superhero,' whereas I'm kind of more interested in separating those two ideas out. You have characters with super powers who may or may not be heroic, because human beings aren't all heroic. I tend to be drawn to antiheros.

A lot of people ask for sequels, but what they really want is just to know the characters are happy and safe.

I wasn't thinking of a sequel when I finished 'Life Class.' What changed my mind was the perception that the characters had a lot of life left in them, a lot of unresolved conflicts, and also I became interested in the Tonks pastel portraits of facially disfigured soldiers and in the whole area of facial reconstruction.

I started a novel back in high school. It wasn't very good. It was the opposite of good. The writing itself wasn't too bad, and the characters were interesting. But the story was a mess, and it was full of fantasy cliches. Dwarf with an axe. Barbarian warrior. I don't ever think I'd bother finishing that. It's just not worth my time.

Everyone likes a bit of variety. I'm sure none of my readers only want to read about anti-heroes or villainous protagonists any more than they only want to read about square-jawed heroes doing the right thing. I just write characters than entertain me and hope they'll be ones that other people want to read about, too.

I think what makes Narnia a magical place is that it offers escapism - escapism from a world that is so different from the reality known by the characters and the reality known by the fans.

The main characters for 'The Seer and the Sword' made an appearance one night and then haunted me for over five years before I began to write them down. Does that count as inspiration? For me, characters tend to show up, stay on to help with the work of writing their stories, and then occasionally deign to visit after a book is finished.

I don't know what my formula is. I only know I like my characters to walk in clouds. I like a little bit of the fairy tale. Let others photograph the ugliness of the world. I don't want to distress people.

'Rocky' is a movie that just happens to be about boxing. It's really about characters and story lines and relationships and all those things, and the backdrop is boxing. You can go back and watch the final fight in 'Rocky' a thousand times. If you dig that movie, if you like the characters, you'll watch the whole movie over and over.

I'd say Rob Reiner's 'When Harry Met Sally' is my all-time favorite. It made me realize there's a way of telling a story where the audience is so in love with the characters that they forget you're even telling a story.

Any opera is interesting if the characters are worth seeing.

'CLUE' is a spin on the classic board game. It uses the original characters and weapons, but it goes even further in depth than the classic who-kills-who idea.

My favorite thing about acting is that I can play all kinds of different people. Frankly, I don't consider myself a very interesting person, so the characters I play are usually much more fun.

Giving voice to marginalised characters is extremely important to me. I want to explore the pain of disenfranchisement, the social strata and boundaries we create and how to make them more permeable.

I'm not a pretty princess, and I'm aware of that, so I like music that is really intense, really bold, and characters that in a way almost have a dark side and are kind of evil because, for me, that's when I feel my strongest and fiercest, when I'm not necessarily the good girl.

We're showing kids a world that is very scantily populated with women and female characters. They should see female characters taking up half the planet, which we do.

The fans on 'Pretty Little Liars' were the craziest fans I've ever met in my life in the best possible way. The dedication that those fans have to the show and the characters is amazing.

I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.

A film that I love is 'Deliverance' from back in the day. You start out with these archetypal characters - the hero, the bookworm, the pacifist - and by the end, it's all turned upside down. I love that.

One of my favourite actresses is Kate Winslet. She plays strong female characters and seems like she has a strong political awareness. I really like Naomi Watts and Juliette Lewis.

The reason you can take the leap of faith with Stephen King, when it comes to the paranormal, or the things that happen in the world that he creates, is because the characters that he writes are accessible.

Every time I talk about 'The Shield' I kind of talk about it from three perspectives, as if I'm three people, because I'm a fan of the show. I'm in love with all the other characters and their journeys and their work. But then, as an actor, I love getting this kind of rich material and having to do it. As my character, did my journey finish?

The Lone Ranger is going to be one of those iconic characters that never rides off into the sunset. We need heroes like him - an underdog who fights the good fight, doesn't kill, and has some serious mojo when the chips are down.

My books often involve characters who began in some form of mental isolation, with a feeling of having died to the world. Then they become involved in some kind of action where by necessity they're forced to reengage, to get back into the game of life, as it were. You could say that about 'Chance.'

I've played such serious characters that no one sees me the way I actually am, which is completely cheesy and goofy, so it would be fun to do a romantic comedy and just have a good laugh.

Characters written in 1990 would be acting like idiots if they were cast into the present. For example, the reader might wonder: Why isn't she texting? Where's her cellphone? Can't she have a simple paternity test? For God's sake, look on the Internet and check him out!

About half the scripts sent to me feature characters I just can't identify with, particularly one-dimensional businessmen or, if it's a comedy, some absurd 10-year-old Japanese stereotype, some role related to IT or business... There's no point in getting mad about it; it's just the way things are.

I've been fortunate to play many different types of characters thus far. However, I really enjoy playing roles that are different than who I am personally. You can have these small fantasy worlds where you can be people you would otherwise never get to be: a doctor, a lawyer, a ruthless business woman.

I still recommend reading travel guides as an insight to a traveller's perspective on fantasy worlds. Nearly all characters end up travelling at some point, and they have many of the same needs and concerns covered in travel guides.

I'm excited to bring my characters to life in book form.

I populated 'The Bourne Identity' with real characters from American history, specifically characters from the Iran-Contra affair, which my father ran the investigation of. But at the heart of it was a fictional character.

If there is a reason I'm able to make unsympathetic characters human, it's because it's my desire to find what drives the unsympathetic behavior. Almost always at the bottom of it is some deep insecurity. Putting your finger on what each individual's particular insecurity is goes a long way to fleshing that person out.

Your job as a writer is to find storylines, narrative structures, and characters to show the things that you believe rather than saying them or telling them.

I am not sure how much Dudley will feature just because of the grand scale of the film and the fact that there are so many stories and characters to tie up. I haven't seen the film yet but I think it will be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but it was nice just to round it off and give it some closure.

Playing characters who are wonderful and beautiful is hard because you don't feel like that most of the time... well, I don't. It's like this whole heart-throb nonsense. It's flattering, but that's not how I feel in the morning. It's something that goes with the job.

Before I was a cosplayer, I was a fan artist. I would draw my favorite characters and sell the pieces at art auctions. But once I discovered cosplay, it was like, 'I don't have to draw my favorite characters, I can become my favorite characters.'

Never jeopardize who you are for a role. Now, I'm not saying you should never change for a role, because the fun of being different characters is adapting different nuances and different parts of the character, but never jeopardize your moral compass or anything like that to have a role.

It's funny, because readers think they want the characters to be blissfully happy, but it makes it kind of boring for the reader.

Male critics and men in the publishing industry want from their women writers what they want from their wives. I'm interested in presenting characters that are more challenging, threatening, complicated and unpredictable.

People are much more complicated in real life, but my characters are as subtle and nuanced as I can make them. But if you say my characters are too black and white, you've missed the point. Villains are meant to be black-hearted in popular novels. If you say I have a grey-hearted villain, then I've failed.

One of the things I've found most challenging about writing a multibook series is keeping it fresh and evolving while still delivering the familiarity that keeps longtime fans devoted to the characters and story world.

I think the key is to give the reader characters they not only care about, but identify with, and to never take away all hope.

I've always been fascinated by young women who come to New York. The characters in 'Lipstick Jungle' were once young women who came to New York and we see their early experiences through flashbacks.

'Dark Shadows' was the spark that lit the fire of my childhood imagination. It wasn't polished; it wasn't perfect. But it gave us characters with real personalities and complicated motivations.

Many characters in the novel are representative of types that exist in India. He represents the caste system in India with an air of superiority, the caste system in India and the people thinking that western things are better.

I love doing characters that challenge me. I'd love to do something that requires me to change physically or learn a skill.

A key goal for an author of history is to persuade his or her readers to forget what they know and to relive the world as it unfolded for characters of the time - with outcomes uncertain.

'Twisted' is similar to 'Pretty Little Liars' in that it's about trying to find out who did it, but it's more about the human relationships between characters and the strain that things can put on them. It's also a little bit of a social commentary piece, because it covers very timely issues.

Characters in TV and theatre tend to experience a lot of conflict, so I push myself through sport to physical and emotional levels that hurt so I've some other reference for extreme experience that isn't me shouting at my girlfriend or my mum. It's a way of controlling the uncontrollable.

Sci-fi fans really have a commitment to the characters even as much as the actors do. There's a synergy between making television and who gets to watch it.

I'm always looking for complicated characters in fiction about whom I can feel a dozen feelings at once - in the space of a single paragraph, even.

I like characters who are changed, often for the better, by the dark nature of their experiences. I also can become engaged by a character for whom I wish to see justice done, one way or the other. In general, I require a book to have some sort of moral center.

I always knew that I wanted to do voiceovers as part of my career. I just kind of didn't expect it to take off the way it did. I couldn't be happier. I love the chance to play so many different characters every day.

I created lots of characters in high school and college, and the first character I created in pro comics was Liana, Green Lantern of M'Elu, for a backup story in 'Green Lantern #162,' my first professional sale.

I love mixing and matching patterns, styles old and new, feminine and masculine and drawing inspiration from characters like Annie Hall.

I think journalists and filmmakers are keen observers. And actors must also be sharp observers as they draw their characters and their stories from what they experience around them. After all, that is what actors, filmmakers, journalists are trained to be: observers. And then they do something with their observations.

It could get saturated or monotonous if I would do the same characters again and again. That is why, to save myself from that feeling, I take time out to choose roles that excite me.

I love creating characters and becoming someone else entirely.

I find women as writers and as characters are operating within narrow confines. They inherit a kind of ghetto of the soul. I'm trying to enlarge the spectrum.

There is no better test of character than when you're tossed into crisis. That's when we see one's true colors shine through. So I try my best to make my characters personally involved in the plot, in a way that stresses them and tests them.

I have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.

One of the most interesting female characters I've written about was Meg Riddoch, the lead character in 'The Thompson Gunner'.

So as long as I'm a working actor, I can improve. I want to work with people that frighten me and excite me, and characters that I don't believe I'm the best person for the part but I'm still gonna try anyway. Those are my favorite roles.

And almost always there has to be change, change in the characters is the journey - it's the story.

If it's a very emotional scene, you're kind of relieved when you've done it, kind of spent. And there are times when you can be rattled, certain characters if they're hyper, that can carry over, the residue of that. But I try to leave it on the set.

I'm a big comic book person. I love Captain America. I like John Henry. I'm hoping to play one of the superhero characters that's coming from Marvel.

I am not an analytical writer. Once I flesh out my characters and decide on the elements of my plot, the story unfolds in my head almost as though it was a movie reel.

Writing historical novels can be dangerous. We need to be as accurate and as fair about the historical record as we can be, at the same time as creating our fictional characters and, hopefully, telling a good story. The challenge is weaving the fiction into the history.

There aren't enough good roles for strong women. I wish we had more female writers. Most of the female characters you see in films today are the 'poor heartbroken girl.'

People like casting me as these characters who definitely have an edge to them, but I don't really think 'bad boy' is something anyone can say about themselves without sounding stupid.

My stories are pretty simplistic, but the characters are always complex and always right, and that comes from the script and my research and reverse-engineering what I find in the real world.

I've found in the past that the more closely I identify with the heroine, the less completely she emerges as a person. So from the first novel I've been learning techniques to distance myself from the characters so that they are not me and I don't try to protect them in ways that aren't good for the story.

The story is a machine for empathy. In contrast to logic or reason, a story is about emotion that gets staged over a sequence of dramatic moments, so you empathize with the characters without really thinking about it too much. It is a really powerful tool for imagining yourself in other people's situations.

I declare I would rather be a kitten and cry, 'Mew!' than live as I see many of my female acquaintances do, tearing each other's characters to pieces, and wearing out their lives in vanity and vexation of spirit.

'A Bug's Life' is a really funny movie and the characters have such different personalities. The movie is happy and then gets really sad and I'm like, W'hoa, I'm feeling this way and this movie is about bugs!'

The hardest thing is to write about people. First and foremost, you have to encounter their humanity. That is the only way you can make them live as characters on the page.

I like the way that psychological extremity can illuminate more 'normal' characters by forcing a comparison.

I hope the wonder of what happens to my characters never goes away. That yearning keeps me writing.

You love all your characters, even the ridiculous ones. You have to on some level; they're your weird creations in some kind of way. I don't even know how you approach the process of conceiving the characters if in a sense you hated them. It's just absurd.

My beliefs encompass all religions. But I never show my religious inclination in my films. My characters have dark sides; they aren't the god-fearing characters. It wasn't a conscious decision. I'm a very lazy and emotional person who connects with the common man.

A lot of times in movies, especially in sequels, the characters become caricatures and just sort of improv machines and joke machines, rather than people you can actually connect to.

Most of my films have a lot of character development and exploration, whereas in most horror movies the characters are just cardboard.

The characters in my stories, whether historical or fictional, usually prove to be a compilation of influences taken from differing sources, but never drawn from one model.

At the beginning of a new project, often before I do any actual writing, I collect photos, quotes, song lyrics, and even objects that relate to the characters or the world I'm creating.

A little light on the RPG elements but heavy on action, 'Mass Effect 2' was the game that created a world of characters that I actually cared about. When it came down to making those tough decisions during the final mission, I actually had to put the controller down and think about my choices.

In real life, people are integrated into society. That's what happens in my books as well. Minor characters don't just walk in and spout lines, they interact and have an effect on the events. It's not an isolated universe.

The best characters in books are always the difficult ones, and why would you want to fall in love with someone difficult? The ones I'd fall in love with are the ones I'd definitely keep out of a book.

I find my characters and stories in many varied places; sometimes they pop out of newspaper articles, obscure historical texts, lively dinner party conversations and some even crawl out of the dusty remote recesses of my imagination.

One of the great lessons I learned about historical fiction from writing 'Loving Frank' is that you don't try to disguise what people did; my approach was to try to understand the characters and why they did what they did.

I've found that readers of historical romances really like series because they get to revisit characters and find out what happens with them. I've done several series.

I get up at 7:30. I grab a canvas bag and go out. I say hello to the people in the supermarket and liquor store. I buy the 'New York Times.' I go to the beach and think about characters and plot.

'The Walking Dead' never wants you to get too comfortable with characters and cast members. I think about the time you feel fairly secure with your appreciation of a character is about the time the show will gut-punch you.

Sometimes after a compliment about my characterization skills, I'm asked if I model my characters on real people. Emphatically, no. And sort of, yes.

You need to know the characters as living, breathing people before you start the plot; otherwise, you'll feel panic, anarchy and chaos.