Quotes
Quotes about Character
A major characteristic of the young is their rejection of literature
Its paperback version is a poor but necessary thing, a concession to the pocket, the sickly child of the original. Book can be taken as an acronym standing for Box of the Organized Knowledge. The book called a novel is a box from which characters and events are waiting to emerge at the raising of the lid. It is a solidity, a paperback is a ghost.
He had got death over with, then. He was, in a sense, lucky. Perhaps posthumous life was better than the real thing. Oh God, yes, I remember Enderby, what a man. Eater, drinker, wencher, and such exotic adventures. You could go on living without all the trouble of still being alive. Your character got blurred and mingled with those of other dead men, wittier, handsomer, themselves more vital now that they were dead. And there was oneâs work, good or bad, but still a death-cheater. It wasnât death that was the that was the trouble, of course, it was dying.
A work of art is traditionally characterized in terms of unity of conception and execution
I believe Nabokov was right in saying that language itself is one of the characters of fiction
Create your characters, give them a time and place to exist in, and leave the plot to them; the imposing of action on them is very difficult, since action must spring out of the temparament with which you have endowed them
The characters of an art novel resist the structure which their creators try to impose on them; they want to go their own way. They do not even want the book to come to an end
Joyce was so little of a visual writer that he created characters one can hardly see
A character in Evelyn Waugh's Put Out More Flags said that the difference between prewar and postwar life was that, prewar, if one thing went wrong the day was ruined; postwar, if one thing went right the day would be made. America is a prewar country, psychologically unprepared for one thing to go wrong.
If we take away plot, character, dialogue, even characters, we shall be left with something that is common to the most traditional and avant-garde novelist - a concern with interpreting, through the imagination, the flux of ordinary life; an attempt to understand, though not with the cold deliberation of the scientist, the nature of the external world and the mind that surveys it
To flesh ourselves with character we must identify ourselves, swiftly, temporarily, with one or other of our brothers and sisters of the universe
They were all characters in somebody's dream
I tried to address him with calm, to treat him as an errant character of my own fiction
I tried to address him with calm, to treat him as some errant character of my own fiction
I went back to my novel, crumpled the sheet I had started, and forced the characters back into total servitude to my will. Slaves, sort of, with only the illusion of freedom. Like all of us.
At fifteen my mind was set on learning. At thirty my character had been formed. At forty I had no more perplexities. At fifty I knew the Mandate of Heaven. At sixty I was at ease with whatever I heard. At seventy I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing moral principles.
Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life.
Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life.
Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.
