Quotes About Character

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn't very interesting.

I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It's you I'm not entirely sure of.

It was easier to be brave when you were someone else.

A brave man helps. A coward just gives presents.

I don't have to listen to rumors about a man when I can judge him for myself.

A woman who would steal your love when your love was really all you had to give was not much of a woman.

Who gets to be best-liked in any community? Who is the most trusted? Why, the man who does the dirty job, of course, and does it with a smile. The man who does the job you couldn't bring yourself to do.

It's better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a tremendous cost.

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.

For God's sake, Larry, grow up. Develop a little self-righteousness. A lot of that is an ugly thing, God knows, but a little spread over all your scruples is an absolute necessity!

I don't have to listen to rumors about a man when I can judge him for myself.

Stand and be true

For a woman a man will do many things that he'd turn his back on in an instant when alone; things he'd back away from, nine times out of ten, even when drunk adn with a bunch of his friends egging him on.

Oh, about beer I never lie, Crandall said. A man who lies about beer makes enemies.

He had live long enough to know there was a little scumbag in everyone, but it didn't help much when you had to take out the trash.

Here is something I learned in Empis: good people shine brighter in dark times.

Compared to the dullest human being actually walking about on the face of the earth and casting his shadow there," Hardy supposedly said, "the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones." I understood because that was what I felt like in those interminable, dissembling days: a bag of bones.

As the twig is bent the bough is shaped, that was another old saying, and once a pretentious asshole, always a pretentious asshole.

Story is something happening to someone you have been led to care about.

He had lived long enough to know there was a little scumbag in everyone, but it didn't help much when you had to take out the trash.

The thought that grieving for a fictional character was absurd did more than cross his mind during his tossings and turnings. For grieving was exactly what he was doing, of course.

Service is not something you do. It is something you are.

Ballot papers do not define leaders. Leadership is defined by conviction, vision, passion and inspiration.

A difficult journey is more revealing of character than any discussion or analysis.