Characters Quotes

I want characters to have voices that feel authentic, unique, honest, fresh and original - all at once. Part of that authenticity is evoking genuine emotion across life - the sadness, passion, love, sense of loss, missed opportunities, and confusion even. All of this helps us realize that our choices do impact the lives that we eventually lead.

If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.

I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers.

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for another day's progress through the dazzling quicksand the marsh of blank paper.

The story man must see clearly in his own mind how every piece of business will be put over. He should feel every expression, every reaction. He get far enough from his story to take a second look at it... to see whether there is any dead phase... to see whether the personalities are going to be interesting and appealing to the audience. He should also try to see that the things that his characters are doing are of an interesting nature.

I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters - to make them personalities.

A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

In our animation we must show only the actions and reactions of a character, but we must picture also with the action. . . the feeling of those characters.

None of my characters are rich or famous, and the situations they find themselves in could happen to anyone.

It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are... It's much easier to hide yourself in a character.

Most of my stories are ideas in action. In other words, I get a concept, and I let it run away. I find a character to act out the idea. And then the story takes care of itself.

My 'Sam Gamgee' is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself.

Most characters are composed of snippets here and there of people I've known, and all rolled into the character I've created. They do become like their own people.

Historically, actors have been made very famous for roles that were something that was far - - Richard Widmark comes to mind (playing Tommy Udo in "Kiss of Death") or something like that, where you do some famous role and everybody imitates you for the rest of your life. But obviously it's much more fun to play something you're not than it is to play something you are.

I very seldom, very seldom, even know what my characters look like.

All characters come from people I know, but after the initial inspiration, I tend to modify the characters so they fit with the story.

I always like to try different things, different genres; stories that have a dramatic element and can generate conflict which I find appealing; where the characters have to overcome obstacles. That kind of thing is challenging.

I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.

I hate the crazy, neurotic characters beyond a certain point.

Do you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all them adventures?

We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.

In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity.

My characters talk to one another, and when it reaches a certain pitch of excitement I jump out of bed and run and trap them before they are gone.

Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest you want them all to land in hell together, and right away.

I take great pride in the artistic development of cartoons. Our characters are made to go through emotions.

You spend your life training to be an actor, observing people's characteristics so that you can design characters around what you've seen.

Until a character becomes a personality it cannot be believed. Without personality, the character may do funny or interesting things, but unless people are able to identify themselves with the character, its actions will seem unreal. And without personality, a story cannot ring true to the audience.