120 quotes found
“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are ...”
“You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.”
“A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions.”
“My problem as a writer is thatwhenever I meet someone for the first timeI immediately invent for them a personality and background that are invariably more interesting than the ones they possess. A...”
“When peoples parallel truth collides with their real truth, they may have a hard time in subduing all the fanciful items and characters of their invented world. (The day the mirror was talking back)”
“The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every tim...”
“Galloway pursed his lips and then gave a sly smirk. Ill admit I didnt foresee this. You have become a prominent foe. I apologize for ridiculing you.I accept your apology.Good. Now its time to die. ...”
“Now wasnt the time for freaking out, I needed to know what the hell Im dealing with. I took another breath and turned. Facing me was my former friend, their loyal sidekick, and the unwilling partic...”
“This isn't the road home. This is a road littered with questions that will inevitably lead to an answer.”
“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.”
“The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.”
“Our relationship with literary characters, at least to those that exercise a certain attraction over us, rests in fact on a denial. We know perfectly well, on a conscious level, that these characte...”
“It is sometimes the minor, not the major, characters in a novel who hold the author's affection longest. It may be that one loses affection for the major characters because they suck off so much en...”
“Then you are a poet?' she asked, fingering the flyer in her pocket.'No not at all,' he waved his hand. 'I am merely a character in a poem.”
“Its very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain. But you may depend on it that every one bears some mark; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewh...”
“Writers are in many ways like demi-gods. With one stroke of a pen they can give life to a character, or strike them from existence, with nary a twinge of grief at their passing.”
“In general there should be gay characters in YA because a) surprise, there are gay folks everywhere and b) in my opinion as a father, theres not a damn thing wrong with my child encountering gay fo...”
“If you're silent for a long time, people just arrive in your mind.”
“In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!", May 10, 1886)”
“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down wh...”
