Good Characters Quotes

#1. Good characters in fiction are the very devil. Not only because most authors have too little material to make them of, but because we as readers have a strong subconscious wish to find them incredible.

C.S. Lewis

#2. It is in their 'good' characters that novelists make, unawares, the most shocking self- revelations.

C.S. Lewis

#3. A great character needs trials to overcome - experiences to give them depth, to make them vulnerable, relatable, and likable. Good characters need hardships to make them strong. The idea makes sense, but it still sucks if you're the heroine.

Kelly Oram

#4. You can't write good characters if you can't imagine what it's like being in another person's skin. And if you can imagine that, you naturally want other people's lives to be better. You want to make that happen.

Patrick Rothfuss

#5. The good characters in my book are loosely based on folks I know. All the bad stuff is made up.

Mike Bove

#6. I'd like to play nothing but good characters.

Joan Leslie

#7. The problem of good and evil is not the problem of good and evil, but only the problem of evil. In opposition to good there are evil characters, but there are no good characters in opposition to evil. Evil is arguable, but good is not. Therefore the Devil always wins the argument.

Laura Riding

#8. I don't think you can teach someone how to come up with good characters or a story.

Thomas Lennon

#9. When I start writing these novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.

Ruth Ozeki

#10. All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story ... You've got good characters ... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

Suzanne Collins

#11. Good characters the reader cares about combined with an intriguing plot. Do those two and you've got it made.

Bob Mayer

#12. I love playing characters that are bigger than life and maybe have a darker side that they present to the world. Those are good characters.

Randy Quaid

#13. I hope it's not all I'll ever do, but I know I've played enigmatic characters. For me, the good characters are people who get places, are devious, are cunning and tricky and hard to pin down. Obviously, if you play one and you do an okay job of it, that'll be on people's minds.

Aidan Gillen

#14. There is nothing I can't do writing in Fantasy. I can have romance, I can have mystery, I can have drama, I can have good characters - I can have everything you can do in any other genre ... plus a dragon.

Patrick Rothfuss

#15. All deeply good characters in imaginative literature, have to be, as it were, diluted with weakness or eccentricity; for only on such conditions are they comprehensible by readers and expressible by writers. Aldous Huxley

Nicholas Murray

#16. I'm not a purist - I like films that are narrated and films that aren't, films that are beautiful and films that are clumsy but heartfelt. Mostly, I just like a good story and good characters.

Marshall Curry

#17. If they are good characters, they have minds of their owns. If they are great characters, they go stomping off into the sunset and leave you to pick up the trash.

Wendi Kelly

#18. I have a very healthy appetite for good writing and good characters. Having weak writing is my biggest fear.

Michael K. Williams

#19. I always look for good stories and good characters, and if they're placed in a whodunit, then I'm interested.

Joel Kinnaman

#20. There are good characters and bad characters.

Matt Stone

#21. Good characters are rare. As long as I find one or two a year, I'm happy.

Ludivine Sagnier

#22. I work very hard on finding good characters who can explain things to me, and I use them to help tell the story. I organize my pieces not just around people but around animals and plants, energy flows, the path that carbon takes through the food system.

Michael Pollan

#23. It's rare that I've read a script where I'm like, "Oh, my god, it's hilarious!" All you want is a good skeleton and good characters. Then, you can go, "Okay, I can bring a lot to this. I can improvise and I can create something out of this."

Nick Swardson

#24. Good characters make you feel like you have new friends, don't they? You have to re-read the books just to visit with them again. Grace Awakening. Book one: Awakening Dreams

Shawn L. Bird

#25. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Oscar Wilde

#26. People who are well-known, famous people, I think, make very poor characters for fiction. They make good characters for gossip columns. But not for fiction.

Fran Lebowitz

#27. I've been astounded to discover how good to their teams and crew that Marvel are. They're so collaborative, so smart with their stories. They have rich, dynamic characters which are so much fun to play.

Evangeline Lilly

#28. If you can play lots of different characters, that's fun. As long as the material is good, that's what the attraction is for me.

Freddie Stroma

#29. Any good production team is going to allow an actor to breathe life into the characters - that's why they hired that woman, that man, whatever the case.

John DiMaggio

#30. Make your characters interested in something. Striving for something. In need of something. Good at something. This will make them likeable and interesting.

James Franco

#31. Mom removed all games that remotely suggest violence and death-but Cody's doing a good job of making harmless cartoon characters suffer in fresh and inventive ways.

Neal Shusterman

#32. First of all, I never think of my characters as good or evil. I play them as honestly as I can. When you're playing a good character, you have an idea that you're playing the hero and the good guy.

Dennis Haysbert

#33. For me, if the writing and - by extension - the subject matter and the characters are all good, it doesn't matter if it's film or TV. Each medium has great things going for it.

Adam Croasdell

#34. When you say the name Gilligan, you know who that is. If a show is good, if it's written well, you should be able to erase the names of the characters saying the lines and still be able to know who said it. If you can't do that, the show will fail.

Sherwood Schwartz

#35. If you got a good imagination, a lot of confidence and you kind of know what you are saying, then you might be able to do it. I know a lot of colorful characters at home that would make great actors.

Jason Statham

#36. Fills the heart with its unforgettable characters and small-town charm. A feel-good read as welcome as a favorite friend!

Christie Ridgway

#37. A good way to never run out of ideas? Surround yourself with interesting people, then think about how you can make them into characters.

B.A. Gabrielle

#38. Sometimes even when the book is over I don't know who's good and who's bad. It's really more interesting, I think, to write about gray characters than it is to write about black and white.

Harlan Coben

#39. There's a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they're interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they're just a mess. It's good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality.

Ellen Pompeo

#40. I write my own stories. I like telling stories to little children. I think the good thing about stories is they carry you to another place which you've never been. And you feel like you're just enveloped by the book and the characters.

Georgie Henley

#41. First of all, Craig Lucas' work, any of it, for any actor, is such good material. It's so alive in such a poetic, yet human way. It's theatrical, but it lets you emotionally connect with the characters.

Marin Hinkle

#42. I've gotten pretty good at leaving characters on the set. I go home and try to relax and regroup and be ready for the next day.

Nicolas Cage

#43. For me, the attraction of TV is that you continue to get to tell those stories and refine those characters. The other thing is that TV, in the last years, got really, really, really good.

Jonathan Nolan

#44. Monsieur Lerebour was short, round and jovial, with the joviality of a shopkeeper who liked to do himself well. His wife, who was thin, self-willed and perpetually discontented, had still not succeeded in overcoming her husband's good humour.

Guy De Maupassant

#45. Being able to improvise is the basis for creating all characters and situations, for everything to do with performing, really. And it's good therapy as well.

Chris Kattan

#46. There are a set of malicious, prating, prudent gossips, both male and female, who murder characters to kill time; and will rob a young fellow of his good name before he has years to know the value of it.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

#47. With action films, it's great if it's not just driven by action, but by a good story and interesting characters, as well. Though, there's nothin' like kicking butt!

Dwayne Johnson

#48. There are no black and white, good or bad characters in 'Game Of Thrones,' but Joffrey was an exception. Just pure evil.

Sophie Turner

#49. 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.

Mark Twain

#50. Writing historical novels can be dangerous. We need to be as accurate and as fair about the historical record as we can be, at the same time as creating our fictional characters and, hopefully, telling a good story. The challenge is weaving the fiction into the history.

Edward Rutherfurd

#51. A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the right grain and quality, through a long fronting of men and events, and rubbing on good and bad fortune.

Henry David Thoreau

#52. 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.

Stephen King

#53. You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men ... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.

Tobin Bell

#54. My brand is good storytelling. I really want [my company] Hillman Grad Productions to be associated with great stories, interesting characters; things that are three-dimensional and feel honest.

Lena Waithe

#55. I deal in a very artistic way of what interests me and marks my passion, and I try to - whether its good or not - am in love with acting and the stage and characters and the ability to reach and to touch people, so that's where, I guess, that's where my heart will reside, by and large.

Angela Bassett

#56. A successful direct action is like creating a good fantasy story. It's like a quest," Phillips said excitedly in the introduction. "There is a conflict, compelling characters, a good plan, build up, twists and turns, adversity, the climax, and then the win

Anonymous

#57. It's amazing what a good book can do. A good book and its characters can make you feel sadness, anger, happiness and so many other emotions. My plan is to deliver to you those good books and memorable characters.

Josuanne Denis-Frasier

#58. I'm not that much of a researcher. I'm good at channeling characters, and I'm good at structure.

Jami Attenberg

#59. I told her that the plots were all the same, and that the style was pretty terrible. She would answer, 'Well, if it is a good plot, it will stand being read over a good many times, and the style doesn't matter as long as you can understand what the characters are doing.

John Wiley Jr.

#60. Good character isn't produced overnight; it's grown over many seasons. In the same way you sort the good apples from the bad, the marks of poor characters are just as easy to detect.

Nicole Deese

#61. The only men who can turn my blood stream into a condition resembling heavy surf are good-looking heels with characters as intricately unpleasant as the sewers of Paris. With decent and honorable gents, I come all over Platonic. Was ever a woman so perverse and wrongheaded?

Margaret Halsey

#62. The reason that some motion-capture films don't work is if the scripts are not good, and the characters aren't engaging, then you don't believe in the journey, and you're not connected to it. It's not the technology's fault.

Andy Serkis

#63. I'd like to guest star on 'Game of Thrones.' I love period pieces and dark material. I think the show has a good balance of that and some solid characters.

Kyle Schmid

#64. If you can't be of good character, write a good character.

Rosen Trevithick

#65. I don't think of the characters as being good or bad because that doesn't help me as a writer.

Bryan Cogman

#66. I think that I prefer to shoot characters even if they are not good people. I don't think that cinema is a place where you can do sentences like in a court.

Miguel Gomes

#67. I grew up in a community where it was not the exception to be a good girl. It was sort of expected. And all of my friends were good girls too, and my boyfriends were good boys. Everybody was pretty nice. And that affects how I write my characters. There aren't very many bad guys in my novels.

Stephenie Meyer

#68. In other words Yates had remembered the lesson of his first great master, Fitzgerald - namely, that people rarely say what they mean, and good dialogue is a matter of catching one's characters "in the very act of giving themselves away.

Blake Bailey

#69. That's the main thing, looking for interesting characters, good directors, and experiences where you're growing and learning.

Nicholas Hoult

#70. A lot of the characters I play have problems, they are marginalised, they have serious psychological problems, problems with relationships, with childhood. These are big subjects, big subjects. You can't balk at work like that. As an actor, that's as good as it gets.

Robert Carlyle

#71. The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it.

James Madison

#72. Why has Scandinavia been producing such good thrillers? Maybe because their filmmakers can't afford millions for CGI and must rely on cheaper elements like, you know, stories and characters.

Roger Ebert

#73. Just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad.

Rebecca McNutt

#74. I kept my eyes closed until I felt my resolve to be who I wanted to be come back. I couldn't stay this desperate. It wouldn't look good to people watching from the outside.

Natalie Bina

#75. I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.

V.E Schwab

#76. Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.

Isabel Allende

#77. Where typically the cops are generally the good guys, 'The Red Road' blurs the lines intelligently and shows corruption from all sides of the law. It provides unpredictable drama where the audience is kept guessing about how these characters will each choose to act.

Martin Henderson

#78. Time is what makes good stories. Much has been cooking for a long time, and at last finds an out in narration one day. That's a supreme joy. And why the characters keep showing up.

Barry Hannah

#79. The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel, because they are so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in your life, because they are so good.

Anthony Trollope

#80. That's what a powerful story does. It creates a more intense experience of life for you to watch. That's what a good film does for me, anyway. That process, I enjoy. It just makes for entertaining characters and entertaining films.

Sharlto Copley

#81. I don't want to play high schoolers anymore. I guess I don't feel that way. I just want to play characters who are really good.

Nat Wolff

#82. Whenever you can manoeuvre your characters into a situation where they both have a good argument to make, you're on the right track.

Marc Guggenheim

#83. I like being part of good movies and telling stories that mean something to me. I also like playing characters that I look up to.

Katie Holmes

#84. I used to think that one day I should write a really great novel, but I've long ceased even to hope for that. All I want people to say is that I do my best. I do work. I never let anything slipshod get past me. I think I can tell a good story and I can create characters that ring true.

W. Somerset Maugham

#85. When I tell people there are three stories in 'Thunderstruck' that were from the same wrecked novel, they want to guess what they are. Nobody has. There are no characters or timelines in common. They're structured very differently. A good novel wouldn't have pulled apart so easily.

Elizabeth McCracken

#86. The way the films look will never entertain an audience alone. It has to be in the service of a good story with great characters.

John Lasseter

#87. A good novelist does not lead his characters, he follows them. A good novelist does not create events, he watches them happen and then writes down what he sees.

Stephen King

#88. As writers, we must keep throwing problems at our characters. Conflict is the heart of good storytelling. Hiking in nature along a twisting trail can remind us what a good story feels like. It's the opposite of a treadmill - or an interstate highway.

Kate Klise

#89. It is s shame that more people do not appreciate the value of "a good read". I was fortunate enough to have had elementary school teachers who would read to us while we were to put our heads down on the desk and visualize the story and characters. It set me up for a lifetime of enjoying reading....

Linda Roberts

#90. We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.

Thomas Bernhard

#91. The characters you refer to as predatory and unsavory are useful. They're the ones who make a novel into a thriller. They're active, and most of the common virtues, the signs of a good person, are not.

Thomas Perry

#92. Writers are b*tc*ing about 140 characters. If you can't make a point in two sentences, how good is that book of yours really going to be?
Taken from Twitter Titters Volume 1 edited by John Rice

A.W. Tozer

#93. With any good projects, I feel like the off-screen chemistry factors on-screen. It's great when you don't have to force it, but when it's not there you better focus on getting there, because as we live with these characters we spend more time with one another than we do our families at home.

Aldis Hodge

#94. I was watching the last season of 'Mad Men,' and they're now so in their characters and they're so comfortable in their characters, and they're doing such good work. That can only happen from doing it over and over, and developing a character over seven years.

James Frain

#95. Whether a character is good or evil depends on your perspective.

Steve Jones Snr

#96. Anyhow, I've learned one thing now. You only really get to know people when you've had a jolly good row with them. Then and then only can you judge their true characters!

Anne Frank

#97. Listen to those characters in your head ... sit down and just write a good book.

Timothy Pina

#98. Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.

Michael Morpurgo

#99. I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot.

Ira Glass

#100. It's good to know that other people think differently, and that's what makes the characters interesting.

Keira Knightley