Characters In Books Quotes

Whether a character is good or evil depends on your perspective. ~ Steve Jones Snr

It's funny, when I lived in Ohio, I would read about extraordinary, eccentric characters in books and plays, but I couldn't imagine them in real life. Then I came to New York. ~ Fiona Davis

You see? Characters in books do not read books. Oh, they snap them shut when somebody enters a room, or fling them aside in disgust at what they fancy is said within, or hide their faces in one which they pretend to peruse while somebody else lectures them on matters they'd rather not confront. But they do not read them. 'Twould be recursive, rendering each book effectively infinite, so that no single one might be finished without reading them all. This is the infallible message of discovering on which side of the page you are on. ~ Michael Swanwick

Books couldn't judge you or hurt you. They didn't make me feel small and insignificant. I know it's weird, but I always felt really close to the characters in books, like they were my true circle of friends, inviting me into their world. ~ Amy Koto

You live like comfortable strangers. Like characters in a play. ~ Aryn Kyle

Perhaps this is what Henry James meant when he talked about the "irresponsibility" of characters. Characters are irresponsible, art is irresponsible when compared to life, because it is first and foremost important that a character be real, and as readers or watchers we tend to applaud any effort made towards the construction of that reality. We do not, of course, indulge actual people in the world this way at all. In real life, the fact that something seems real to someone is not enough to interest us, or to convince us that that reality is interesting. But the self-reality of fictional characters is deeply engrossing, which is why villains are lovable in literature in ways that they are not in life. ~ James Wood

...her dearest friends are characters in books. ~ Sarah J. Maas

She had a way about her that spoke of homemade bread, and caring for people, and the kind of patience that women have when they help a ewe birth a lamb, or stay up in the night with a baby calf bawling for its momma. ~ James Aura

The reality I submerse myself in when writing, is far greater than the physical reality surrounding me at work! ~ D. P . Hall

Some characters touch your heart, then tear it apart. ~ Dasha Levitsky

He was an angel. He was better than an angel - he was an archangel. He was a saint. He was going to get so much karma for this. Buddha was going to love him. ~ Nash Summers

I always think that it's wrong to put images of my protagonists on the cover of my novels because readers can identify with characters only if they are given the chance to imagine them independently. ~ Orhan Pamuk

All the children seem to be coming out quite intelligent, thank goodness. It would have been such a bore to be the mother of morons, and it's an absolute toss-up, isn't it? If one could only invent them, like characters in books, it would be much more satisfactory to a well-regulated mind. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I think to be writer you have to enjoy being alone. I was a loner as a teenager and was always drawn to characters in books and films who were at the fringes. ~ Markus Zusak

My longing was for Russia ... Not Soviet Russia. But nineteenth-century Russia, the Russia of Dostoevsky's saintly prostitutes and Alyosha; of Tolstoy's Pierre; and Aksionov, the sufferer in "God Sees the Truth But Waits." A country where the characters in books were allowed to ask one another the questions: How must I live to be happy? What is goodness? Why does man suffer? What is to be done? ~ Guy Vanderhaeghe

Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people. ~ Cornelia Funke

I don't know where people got the idea that characters in books are supposed to be likable. Books are not in the business of creating merely likeable characters with whom you can have some simple identification with. Books are in the business of creating great stories that make you're brain go ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr. ~ John Green

The best characters in books are always the difficult ones, and why would you want to fall in love with someone difficult? The ones I'd fall in love with are the ones I'd definitely keep out of a book. ~ Patrick Ness

I tended to fall in love with characters in books. Most guys I went to school with were far too interested in sports or video games. How could they hold a candle to Mister Darcy's intensity, Tom Joad's ethics, Martin Eden's passion, Caleb Trask's struggle for goodness, or Edmond Dantes' cunning intellect? ~ Trisha Haddad

It [the Harlem Renaissance] was a time of black individualism, a time marked by a vast array of characters whose uniqueness challenged the traditional inability of white Americans to differentiate between blacks. ~ Clement Alexander Price

In the books I find the thrum of everything unsayable. The characters weep the way I want to, love the way I want to, cry, die, beat their breasts, and bray with life. ~ Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

The worst part of writing is meeting all these great new characters and having no one to talk about (the adventures you share with) them. ~ Claudia Bakker

In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print - I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books: "Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip? "Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. "Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? "Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera. ~ Mark Twain

When I perform on stage I do achieve quite a variety of ways of singing. I was interested in trying to replicate that in the studio environment. I think it is an interesting alternative position, just to stretch people's imagination, myself included, as to who is actually singing the song. It's not to create alter-egos or characters - it always feels like me, even when the voice is extremely manipulated. ~ Planningtorock

I love acting, and ultimately all my characters are very different, and each character I love in a different way. ~ Catherine Mary Stewart

Canada was for me very much Sweden, you know? Very much open people, that they read books, they go see films. I felt at home in Canada. And also, you speak French. ~ Michael Nyqvist

In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. ~ Anna Quindlen

The Jewish people have been in exile for 2,000 years; they have lived in hundreds of countries, spoken hundreds of languages and still they kept their old language, Hebrew. They kept their Aramaic, later their Yiddish; they kept their books; they kept their faith. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

What shapes the best in us dies when the best education dies! The best in us shall always be undermined when they that are responsible for shaping the best in us are always undermined!
I stand for a different education: a different education where students will not just learn books but life!
I stand for a different education: a different education where students will not just learn moral principles, but they shall be living examples of moral principles
I stand for a different education: a different education where students don't just understand what they learn, but practice what they learn with understanding!
I stand for a different education: a different education where students will not just learn about people of different beliefs, culture and backgrounds, but how to live with people who don't share common perspective with them and know how to show their emotions of bitterness and misunderstanding rightly!
I stand for a different education: a different education where students will be perfect ambassadors' of God on earth and live their daily lives with all due diligence!
I stand for a different education: a different education where students will understand why we all breathe the same air, sleep and wake up each day in the same manner to continue the journey of life!
I stand for a different education: a different education where students will learn with inspiration even in their desperations!
I stand for a different education: a diffe ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The shittrain began on November 22nd, 1963, in Dallas - when some twisted little geek blew the President's off... and then a year later, LBJ was re-elected as the "Peace Candidate."

Johnson did a lot of rotten things in those five bloody years, but when the history books are written he will emerge in his proper role as the man who caused an entire generation of Americans to lose all respect for the Presidency, the White House, the Army, and in fact the who structure of "government. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

A man who has mastered all the books in the world may still be ignorant if he fails to connect this bookish knowledge with the real world. ~ Awdhesh Singh

Admit it. We all need books and fairy dust once in a while. ~ Emily Jane

I'll tell you something," said Francis,urgent with shoe lace, "if we keep on saying things weren't when we know perfectly well they were, we shall soon dish up any sort of chance of magic we may ever have had. When do you find people in books going on like that? They just say 'This is magic!' and behave as if it was. They don't go pretending they're not sure. Why, no magic would stand it."
Book: Wet Magic, Chapter 2 ~ E. Nesbit

Schwitzgebel even scrounged up the missing-book lists from dozens of libraries and found that academic books on ethics, which are presumably borrowed mostly by ethicists, are more likely to be stolen or just never returned than books in other areas of philosophy.49 In other words, expertise in moral reasoning does not seem to improve moral behavior, and it might even make it worse (perhaps by making the rider more skilled at post hoc justification). ~ Jonathan Haidt

But at some point it becomes obvious that, ultimately, the adventure of faith is the most sensible thing to do, and in fact the only thing worth doing. As Sam says toward the end of The Two Towers, no one remembers the tales in which the characters give up and turn back. Great and heroic deeds remain undone if no one leaps into the dark to do them. That's true when it comes to faith, too. You can't play a meaningful role in the great story by playing it safe. Once you hit the road, there is no going back to life as it was before. When Jesus asks His disciples if they will leave him to, Peter says, "Lord to whom will we go?" (verse 68). It's either walk with Jesus, unsafe as it seems sometimes, or go home. ~ Sarah Arthur

Make each day truly new, dressing it with the blessings of heaven, bathing it in wisdom and love and putting yourself under the protection of Mother Nature. Learn from the wise, from the sacred books, but do not forget that every mountain, river, plant or tree also has something to teach. ~ Paulo Coelho

The book you read and read well, over and over again, lives in you, becomes your thought and thinking pattern, teaches you all the time and keeps reminding about how to act and react towards things and occurrences' in life! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I don't like the strictly objective viewpoint [in which all of the characters' actions are described in the third person, but we never hear what any of them are thinking.] Which is much more of a cinematic technique. Something written in third person objective is what the camera sees. Because unless you're doing a voiceover, which is tremendously clumsy, you can't hear the ideas of characters. For that, we depend on subtle clues that the directors put in and that the actors supply. I can actually write, "'Yes you can trust me,' he lied." [But it's better to get inside the characters' heads.] ~ George R R Martin

Sibling relationships figure in a lot of my books. You don't often see relationships between adult siblings explored in fiction. ~ Dara Horn

Wait a second," said Ash. "How is there a 'moon in springtime before the start of the new year'? I think it's a riddle. It makes no sense."

"Yes, it does," said Jared. "The new year was in March in England until the 1700s, when the pope introduced a new calendar."

Everyone stared at him. Jared flushed slightly, scar thrown into relief, and muttered, "I read a lot of old books."

"Well done," said Jon. "See where learning gets you, lads? So much better than messing around with girls or playing those video games which one hears are full of violence."

Kami, as a witness to many of her father's video game marathons, gave him a long judgmental stare. "You total hypocrite."

"Hypocrisy is what being a parent is all about," Jon said. "Well done for cracking the books, Jared and Holly. You see how it pays off."

Holly smiled and the light of her smile seemed to spill all over the room, reflections of light refracted all over everywhere.

"It's true reading is a wonderful thing," Rusty observed. "I read a Cosmo a year ago, and I still remember how to keep my nails in perfect condition and also ten top tips on how to dress to accentuate my ass."

Now everybody was staring at Rusty. Unlike Jared, he did not blush.

"Those tips are working," he said. "Don't pretend you haven't all noticed. I know the truth."

Kami rolled up a magazine on the table - sadly, for the sake of dramatic irony ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

The wisdom of the appearance of the spirit in the body is this: the human spirit is a Divine Trust, and it must traverse all conditions, for its passage and movement through the conditions of existence will be the means of its acquiring perfections. ~ Abdu'l- Baha

Going to Europe, someone had written, was about as final as going to heaven. A mystical passage to another life, from which no-one returned the same. Those returning in such ships were invincible, for they had managed it and could reflect ever after on Anne Hathaway's Cottage or the Tower of London with a confidence that did generate at Sydney. There was nothing mythic at Sydney; momentous objects, beings and events all occurred abroad or in the elsewhere of books. ~ Shirley Hazzard

Of course a book can change you. It can even change your life. It's like falling in love. And you never know when such an encounter might happen. You should beware of books, they're sleeping genies. ~ Gaël Faye

I'd worked on a series of Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul books called The Real Deal for HCI books, which featured essays and poems from teens.Finding the right authors for the series has been no easy feat, mostly because I'm looking for a perfect blend of a teen girl with an interesting story or hook, fantastic writing talent, and the confidence to commit to writing a 30,000+ word book in a matter of months. It's a huge commitment and I recognize that, so the fit has to be there from all these different angles. ~ Deborah Reber

What I loved about 'Goodfellas' is that it's a film about bad behavior - but told with great energy and without judgment - but it doesn't actually shy away from the consequences of that behavior in the characters' lives, which I think is similar in 'Keep the Lights On.' ~ Ira Sachs

and there was a birthday present waiting to be read, a boxed set of the Narnia books, which I took upstairs. I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway. My ~ Neil Gaiman

Being a writer, I think, is much like being a parent or a pet parent in my case. I love all of my characters equally, even if I want you to hate them, I love them. If you don't love all your characters you're not doing it right. ~ Ellie Elisabeth

I jealously guard my research time and I love fully immersing myself in those dusty old books and papers. It's one of the most enjoyable parts of my job. ~ Sara Sheridan

They came generally from people writing theses on fantasy or on the Dark Is Rising books. They were full of questions I'd never thought about and false assumptions that I didn't want to think about. They would ask me in great detail for, say, the specific local and mythical derivations of my Greenwitch, a leaf-figure thrown over a Cornish cliff as a fertility sacrifice, and I would have to write back and say, "I'm terribly sorry; I made it all up." They told me I echoed Hassidic myth, which I hadn't read, and the Mormon suprastructure, which I'd never even heard of. They saw symbols and buried meanings and allegories everywhere. I'd thought I was making a clear soup, but for them it was a thick mysterious stew.

from "In Defense of the the Artist" in Signposts to Criticism of Children's Literature (1983) ~ Susan Cooper

In short, our gentleman became so immersed in his reading that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in poring over his books, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. He filled his imagination with everything he had read, with enchantments, knightly encounters, battles, challenges, wounds, with tales of love and its torments, and all sorts of impossible things, and as a result had come to believe that all these fictitious happenings were true; they were more real to him than anything else in the world. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them ... I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. ~ John Milton

I'm not really a plot writer - I'm more interested in the characters and sort of small events that propel the story forward. ~ Sara Zarr

I like to write books that I would have liked as a child, that would have got me thinking and imagining beyond the words on the page. In a way, my audience is always how I remember myself as a child. ~ Garth Nix

today we read of Don Quixote with a bitter taste in the mouth, it is
almost an ordeal, which would make us seem very strange and incomprehensible
to the author and his contemporaries, – they read it with a clear
conscience as the funniest of books, it made them nearly laugh themselves
to death).To see suffering does you good, to make suffer, better still – that
On the Genealogy of Morality
42
48 See below, Supplementary material, pp. 153–4.
49 See below, Supplementary material, pp. 137–9, pp. 140–1, pp. 143–4.
50 Don Quixote, Book II, chs 31–7.
is a hard proposition, but an ancient, powerful, human-all-too-human
proposition to which, by the way, even the apes might subscribe: as people
say, in thinking up bizarre cruelties they anticipate and, as it were, act out
a 'demonstration' of what man will do. No cruelty, no feast: that is what
the oldest and longest period in human history teaches us – and punishment,
too, has such very strong festive aspects! – ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I think of 'Mommy' as very simplistic or not simplistic, but I wish for the style to actually work with what you see onscreen and what you feel in that very moment. I hope we did not disrespect the characters by being too flamboyant when it's not necessary. ~ Xavier Dolan

The censor pretends he is protecting tender hearts, shielding children from sex and violence, keeping the righteous in the right path, guarding against temptation, preserving virtue. How? by burning books, tearing out tongues, stretching necks, stoning women; through torture and imprisonment; by threats of violence against the victim's friends and family; by force-feeding his own people a philosophy not only false and wicked now but false and wicked the day it was first announced by some imaginary lord and used to purchase or preserve his privileges and hoodwink the world. ~ William H Gass

We did not adopt socialism out of books, abstractions, humanism, or pity, but rather out of need for the Arab working class is the mover of history in this period. ~ Michel Aflaq

I may have been prejudiced against lawyer members of Congress, having run against one or two and having been threatened politically by a few others, and also because my own professional background was academic, principally in the liberal arts. Good lawyers, I asserted in campaigns, can be found in the yellow pages of the telephone books. Good historians, or political and social philosophers, are not so easily found or classified. ~ Eugene McCarthy

So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I became interested in making books, starting about 1965, when I did the Serial Project #1, deciding that I needed a small book to show how the work could be understood and how the system worked. ~ Sol LeWitt

Spirituality is for people. It's not just for those who you might have read about in books, it's for people. ~ Belsebuub

THE SIMPLE UNION

Listen to me, O friend.

Be thou a yogi, a monk, a priest,
A devout lover of God,
A pilgrim searching for Happiness, Bathing in holy rivers,
Visiting sacred shrines,
The occasional worshipper of a day,
A great reader of books, Or a builder of many temples -
My love aches for thee.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved.

This vain struggle,
This long toil,
This ceaseless sorrow,
This changing pleasure,
This burning doubt,
This burden of life,
All these will cease, O friend -
My love aches for thee.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved.

Have I pilgrimage the earth,
Have I loved the reflections,
Have I chanted, singing in ecstasy,
Have I donned the robe,
Have I put on ashes,
Have I listened to the temple bells,
Have I grown old with study,
Have I searched,
Was I lost?
Yea, much have I known -
My love aches for thee.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved,

O friend,
Wouldst thou love the reflection,
If I can give thee the reality?
Throw away thy bells, thine incense,
Thy fears and thy gods,
Set aside thy systems, thy philosophies.
Come,
Put aside all these.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved.

O friend,
The simple union is the best.

This is the way to the heart of the Beloved. ~ Anonymous

Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can hear me, for the sake of better savouring the text, so as to make it all the more mine. ~ Alberto Manguel