Character quotes
14.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside character — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Trust is a function of both character and competence. Of course you can't trust someone who lacks integrity, but if someone is honest but they can't perform, you're not going to trust them either. You won't trust them to get the job done."
"You may be good, but what are you good for? You've got to be good for something. You've got to be about some project, some task that requires you to be humble and obedient to the universal principles of service. You've got to live a life of complete and total integrity in order to give this kind of service. This integrity enables you to love other people unconditionally, to be courageous and kind at the same time, because you have integratedness inside your own soul."
"Our capacity for production and enjoyment is a function, in the last analysis, of our character, our integrity."
"The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important."
"Writers must be fair and remember even bad guys (most of them, anyway) see themselves as good—they are the heroes of their own lives. Giving them a fair chance as characters can create some interesting shades of gray—and shades of gray are also a part of life."
"Horror movies often work better when we have a stake in the game. The more we care about the characters, the more human they are to us, the more appealing they are to us and the more effective the horror tends to be."
"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."
"When you start, it's very cold, an impossible task. But then maybe the characters start to take on a little bit of life, or the story takes a turn that you don't expect ... With me that happens a lot because I don't outline, I just have a vague notion. So it's always felt like less of a made thing and more of a found thing. That's exciting. That's a thrill."
"I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven."
"It's dialogue that gives your cast their voices, and is crucial in defining their characters."
"As a rule, I don't worry about genre. I just want to tell a good story, with characters that interest me and my readers."
"Terrifying. . . . A Dark Matter is populated with vivid, sympathetic characters, and driven by terrors both human and supernatural. It's the kind of book that's impossible to put down once it has been picked up. It kept me reading far into the night. Straub builds otherworldly terror without ever losing touch with his attractive cast of youngsters, who age beautifully. Put this one high on your list."
"And if you are honest about the words coming out of your characters' mouths, you'll find that you've let yourself in for a fair amount of criticism."
"The situation comes first...the characters...come next...[then] begin to narrate."
"With six weeks' worth of recuperation time, you'll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And listen--if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us."
"I identify with the characters very closely. At the same time that I`m outside, writing, I`m also inside, experiencing, and it can be very unsettling."
"The writer's original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader's."
"I want to present a really interesting vision of [Jack] Kirby's characters and environments, as well as dig way, way deeper into the history of the Galactic Rangers."
"I read a random issue when I was a kid, but no, I wasn't super familiar with the characters [Captain Victory] until I started researching them. What I found once I started reading back issues however, was this crazy, sprawling, [Jack] Kirby space epic."
"Our minds are shaped by the books we read. Our characters, by the people we meet. Our spirits by the love we give."
