Quotes About Character

5. Disaster works (moves the story forward) by seeming to move the central Figure further back from his goal, leaving him in worse trouble than he was before the scene started. It may seem paradoxical to beginning novelists that scenes work best when they move the lead character further from his story goal – that the best narrative progress often appears to be backwards.

What is a scene? It's a segment of story action, written moment-by-moment, without summary, presented onstage in the story "now." It is not something that goes on inside a character's head; it is physical. It could be put on the theater stage and acted out. What is the pattern of a scene? Fundamentally, it is: Statement of goal. Introduction and development of conflict. Failure of the character to reach his goal, a tactical disaster.

It's axiomatic among professional novelists that when things are going hideously for the lead character, the book is probably going along just wonderfully, thank you.

I am deficient in character, and if I had more of it, I would be ashamed of the fact.

It's been said that we're all three people: the one we see ourselves as being, the one others see us as being, and the one we really are.

Can a literary character be said to live a life from birth to death or otherwise to undergo a development from beginning to end? Or is a literary character-fixed on the pages of a book, trapped forever in the same few words and actions-the very opposite of a living, developing human being?

It's a slight stretch of the imagination but most people are alike in most ways so I've never had any trouble identifying with the character that I'm playing.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama there's no device, It's just about a human being.

A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave

Some guys got class even if they're cops. When

the protagonist-complication-resolution model for story. You see it in various forms. Philip Gerard, who writes both novels and book-length narrative nonfiction, says a story follows when "a character we care about acts to fulfill his desires with important consequences.

Listen, Bob. A gun is just a tool. No better and no worse than any other tool, a shovel—or an axe or a saddle or a stove or anything. Think of it always that way. A gun is as good—and as bad—as the man who carries it. Remember that.

A gun is just a tool. No better and no worse than any other tool, a shovel - or an axe or a saddle or a stove or anything. Think of it always that way. A gun is as good - and as bad - as the man who carries it.

Even his name remained mysterious. Just Shane. Nothing else. We never knew whether that was his first name or last name or, indeed, any name that came from his family. "Call me Shane," he said, and that was all he ever said. But I conjured up all manner of adventures for him, not tied to any particular time or place, seeing him as a slim and dark and dashing figure coolly passing through perils that would overcome a lesser man.

What a man knows isn't important. Its what he is that counts.

The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead.

You don't get to do over parts or go back and change your path. Your life is decided by your character and the decisions you make in the moment.

In work and in life, no matter how smart, talented, and beautiful you are, you also have to be a good person.

Expecting conceit they found courtesy. Expecting arrogance they found a man concerned with people's thoughts and feelings.

Yo no soy para nada bonita, pero cuando sea grande quiero ser el tipo de persona que haga que la gente diga: "Cuando la conoces no la puedes olvidar".

I do not take steroids. I never have. It's sad to me that people want to point fingers. I don't do that. That's not me. I wouldn't feel like a human being.

Prove it. I'll measure your words against your actions, and from that I will determine your worth.

Ugly is how someone acts, not how they look.

Life is like a grindstone; whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you're made of.