Masterful Characterization Quotes

Warning: This read will cause lack of sleep! You wont want to put it down!

July 13, 2016 by Francine Baia
This was a long awaited novel in the Sword of the God series and it was most definitely well worth the wait. The author provides an all encompassing look into the inner thoughts and machinations of each character which is commanding. She tackles several serious subjects that are current in today's society, including PTSD and how it affects people differently and the devastation it causes on family. Several love stories are explored which keeps the readers on edge and wanting more. The integration of languages and cultures are seamless and readily understandable which bolsters the depth of the multiple storylines and at times is masterfully interlaced with comic relief. This is truly an enjoyable read that you will find difficult to put down. Anxiously anticipating the next installment! ~ Anna Erishkigal

Of course, man is also a weak creature with many bad qualities. And it depends on which of his qualities will in a certain social situation and in a certain climate prevail, which qualities will awaken. The totalitarian system was masterful in how it managed to mobilize all the bad qualities. ~ Judy Woodruff

A good American makes propaganda for whatever existence has forced him to become. ~ Saul Bellow

When Tommy walked forlornly home a short while later, Rudy tried what appeared to be a masterful new tactic.
Pity.
On the step, he perused the mud that had dried as a crusty sheet on his uniform, then looked Liesel hopelessly in
the face. "What about it, Saumensch?"
"What about what?"
"You know ... "
Liesel responded in the usual fashion.
"Saukerl," she laughed, and she walked the short distance home. A disconcerting mixture of mud and pity was
one thing, but kissing Rudy Steiner was something entirely different.
Smiling sadly on the step, he called out, rummaging a hand through his hair. "One day," he warned her. "One
day, Liesel! ~ Markus Zusak

There have been many attempts during the past century to describe man's peculiar nature, but I am not sure that a better characterization has yet been made than that of the Renascence humanist, Pico della Mirandola, though couched in the now unfamiliar language of theology.

"God," observed Pico, "took man as a creature of indeterminate nature, and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressed him thus: 'Neither a fixed body nor a form that is peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam; to the end that according to thy longing and according to thy judgment thou mayest have and possess what abode, what form, and what functions thought shalt desire. The nature of all things is limited and constrained within the bounds and laws prescribed by us. Thou, constrained by no limits...shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature....As the maker and molder of thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer, thou shalt have the power to degenerate into lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.'" That choice occurs at every stage in man's development. ~ Lewis Mumford

Sometimes after a compliment about my characterization skills, I'm asked if I model my characters on real people. Emphatically, no. And sort of, yes. ~ Brent Weeks

Women often make communication mistakes that undermine their irresistibility and send men running faster than you can say, "Marriage and kids!"
First of all, most of us don't really listen. What we do is judge whether we like or dislike what a man is saying to us, decide whether we agree or disagree with what he's saying, or determine whether we know it already. We also listen to see if what he is saying fits our agenda (like our agenda to have a boyfriend, get married, or have kids). This is not true listening.
True listening happens when you drop those internal conversations in your mind and simply hear what a man is saying to you from his perspective, as though what he is saying is the most important thing on earth and you need to hear every single word. You don't interpret, analyze, or read into it. You don't say, "In other words . . .," and go on to put into words what you think he means. You just take it in.
When you truly listen, you become instantly attractive. By really hearing a man, you make him feel special and cared for in a very powerful way. If there's genuine chemistry between you, he'll continue to share more and more of himself because of how open and receptive you are to who he actually is (not who you are trying to get him to be). I cannot emphasize this point enough. If you really want to make every man want you, become a masterful listener. ~ Marie Forleo

man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends - they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant. Suspecting it, I have nevertheless depended on this tolerance all my life, and if I were, even now, without either a dog or a horse in my keeping, I should feel I had lost contact with the earth. I should be as concerned as a Buddhist monk having lost contact with Nirvana. ~ Beryl Markham

I'm a filmmaker, and I was most influenced by Hitchcock's films. How he could plant such deep enriched characters and then make us care both about the antagonist and protagonist was masterful. ~ Paul Haggis

People often of masterful intelligence, trained usually in law or economics or perhaps in political science, who have led their governments into disastrous decisions and miscalculations because they have no awareness whatever of the historical background, the cultural universe, of the foreign societies with which they have to deal. ~ Michael Howard

Don't look so stunned," she teased. "I want you, Bram. So much. All the time. When it comes to you, this buttoned-up spinster is just seething with wild, insatiable passion." She kissed him, teasing her tongue over his lips. "It should hardly come as any surprise. You've been telling me so since the very beginning."
"I know," he said wonderingly. "I know. The surprise is that you listened." He cradled her neck in one hand and claimed her mouth in a deep, masterful kiss.

-Susanna & Bram ~ Tessa Dare

For me, the most exciting thing is that Jane Campion is a woman we can all really look up to. She doesn't have the body of work that some other directors do - no woman director does - but her work is so consistently original, wonderful, masterful. ~ Allison Anders

Carver's best book yet! FROM A CHANGELING STAR combines deft characterization and fascinating extrapolation into a complex, compulsively readable thriller. I wish all science fiction novels could be this good. ~ Craig Shaw Gardner

Had Henry III been richer, less beset by other problems and a more competent military strategist, securing Sicily for his second son might have resembled the masterful pan-European geopoliticking in which his grandfather Henry II might have specialised. Unfortunately, he was none of those things. He was a naive fantasist with a penchant for schemes. ~ Dan Jones

Don't take me for a fool!" Dee interrupted angrily, but then had to lean over the boat as another bout of nausea gripped him.
Virginia grinned and winked at Josh. "It's hard to sound masterful when you're throwing up, isn't it?"
"I hate you, Virginia Dare," Dee mumbled.
"I know you don't really mean that," she said lightly.
"I do," he croaked. ~ Michael Scott

The observation turned into insight for LEGO. The company, says Smith- Meyer, had fallen into the trap of thinking that play habits had changed, and that LEGO must change with them. Not at all. Kids just wanted freedom to experiment on their own with the plastic bricks and to build something masterful. Or as Smith-Meyer puts it, "LEGO takes time. ~ Anonymous

The thoughts from a finite mind can at times be very similar to the clouds that move about over the surface of the earth. Both can cover a lot of ground, and can either disperse or increase in formation. Likewise - both are heavily influenced by the surrounding climate. Furthermore - a hard wind increases a fire's spread, thunder proceeds a lightning strike, and when atmospheric water vapor accumulates, it produces clouds. Then, after an abundance of water has been condensed, the clouds will at some point release moisture; the rain/precipitation amount will range from the degree of abundance condensed.
Similarly: an abundance of thoughts can also accumulate - eventually resulting in an overflow of emotion. The overflow can either be positive or negative - the determining factor relying on the characterization of the thoughts - whether they be positive or negative. ~ Calvin W. Allison

[ ... ]virtue is not some kind of mode whose value is
incontestable, it is simply
a scheme of conduct, a way of getting along, which varies
according to accidents of geography and climate and which, consequently, has no
reality, the which alone exhibits its futility.
Only what is constant is really good; what changes perpetually cannot
claim that
characterization: that is why they have declared that immutability belongs to the
ranks of the Eternal's perfections; but virtue is completely without this quality: there
is not, upon the entire globe, two races which are virtuous in the same m
anner;
hence, virtue is not in any sense real, nor in any wise intrinsically good and in no sort
deserves our reverence. ~ Marquis De Sade

There are three types of actions: purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous. Characters, to be immediate and apprehensible, must be presented by all three.' Katin looked toward the front of the car.
The captain gazed through the curving plate that lapped the roof. His yellow eyes fixed Her consumptive light that pulsed fire-spots in a giant cinder. The light was so weak he did not squint at all.
I am confounded, Katin admitted to his jeweled box, 'nevertheless. The mirror of my observation turns and what first seemed gratuitous I see enough times to realize it is a habit. What I suspected as habit now seems part of a great design. While what I originally took as purpose explodes into gratuitousness. The mirror turns again, and the character I thought obsessed by purpose reveals his obsession is only habit; his habits are gratuitously meaningless; while those actions i construed as gratuitous now reveal a most demonic end. ~ Samuel R. Delany

You can use the fun of the genre, but I also really wanted to come at it from the point of view of some really complex characterization. There was a lot that I wanted it to do, and I wanted it to be fun. It's fun, but it's not simple fun. ~ Adrian Hodges

The first time I met Dr. Tuttle, she wore a foam neck brace because of a "taxi accident" and was holding an obese tabby, whom she introduced as "my eldest. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh

I'm not interested in plots. I'm interested only in the characterization of people and what they do. ~ Erskine Caldwell

Whatever characterization one may choose to place on Satan, "imbecile message maker" doesn't fit. This was no third-ranking demon out there in the wilderness throwing lines at Christ. This was the manic master who understood the power of words. He spun what he hoped would be a strike. He failed; Christ succeeded. They both used words. ~ William E. Jefferson

Mary reached into her vinyl purse and extracted one of the novels, each of whose covers had promised laughter and tears. She began to read and, finding a masterful storyteller behind its pages, was instantly and gratefully transported to another place. ~ Lori Lansens

I like dramatic ballets, particularly if they're ballets in which I have a chance to go from one extreme of style or characterization to another. ~ Suzanne Farrell

I'm trying to make the case that the church can indeed, from within its own resources, move out of a false, and often a hateful, characterization of and set of attitudes toward gay and lesbian people. ~ James Alison

Exercise is the technique by which one imposes on the body tasks that are both repetitive and different, but always graduated. By bending behavior towards a terminal state, exercise makes possible a perpetual characterization of the individual ... It thus assures, in the form of continuity and constraint, a growth, an observation, a qualification. ~ Michel Foucault

As Brother Francis readily admitted, his mastery of pre-Deluge English was far from masterful yet. The way nouns could sometimes modify other nouns in that tongue had always been one of his weak points. In Latin, as in most simple dialects of the region, a construction like servus puer meant about the same thing as puer servus, and even in English slave boy meant boy slave. But there the similarity ended. He had finally learned that house cat did not mean cat house, and that a dative of purpose or possession, as in mihi amicus, was somehow conveyed by dog food or sentry box even without inflection. But what of a triple appositive like fallout survival shelter? Brother Francis shook his head. The Warning on Inner Hatch mentioned food, water, and air; and yet surely these were not necessities for the fiends of Hell. At times, the novice found pre-Deluge English more perplexing than either Intermediate Angelology or Saint Leslie's theological calculus. ~ Walter M. Miller Jr.

An Organizing System is an abstract characterization of how some collection of resources is described and arranged to enable human or computational agents to interact with the resources. The Organizing System is an architectural and conceptual view that is distinct from the physical arrangement of resources that might embody it, and also distinct from the person, enterprise, or institution that implements and operates it. ~ Robert J. Glushko

You are the wolf that howls and bites. i am the mustang that nuzzles the hand People know they can work with me. With you? Hell, kill or be killed. ~ Pierce Brown

But this encompassment of her own characterization, based on shreds of convention, peopled by phantoms and voices antipathetic to her, was a sorry and mistaken creation of Tess's fancy - a cloud of moral hobgoblins by which she was terrified without reason. ~ Thomas Hardy

I think I'm very strong at dialogue, I think I'm very strong in characterization. I think sometimes I use dialogue and character work to cover weaknesses in my plotting. ~ Kelly Sue DeConnick

William Graebner's brilliant analysis of America's struggles over the meaning of Patty Hearst gives us not only new perspectives on the 1970s, on Americans' fundamental understandings of their world in a bicentennial year that offered little to celebrate, but also on the longing for heroism and the desire for belief in free will that Graebner believes structured the rise of Reagan-era conservatism. This is a masterful work of cultural history. ~ Beth Bailey

Since her landmark 'Tapestry,' Carole King has both oversimplified and over elaborated that masterful album's style until her music has become something more overtly but less effectively personal. ~ Jon Landau

There are no new plots, but there are plenty of fresh new characters with whom you can grab the reader. Characterization is the key to successful commercial fiction. Characterization starts with goal, motivation, and conflict. Character ~ Debra Dixon

The optimization of cosmic darkness and of Earth's location within the dark universe that sacrifices neither the material needs of human beings nor their capacity to gain knowledge about the universe reflects masterful engineering at a level far beyond human capability- and even imagination. It testifies of a supernatural, superintelligent, superpowerful, fully deliberate Creator. ~ Hugh Ross

… experimental evidence … strongly suggests that the mechanistic order is inadequate as a fundamental characterization of the architecture of the physical world. ~ Paavo Pylkkänen

With Jerott Blyth, innkeepers never shirked the proper discharge of their duties. To the doggedness of his Scottish birth, his long residence in France and his profession of arms had lent a particular fluency. He was black-haired, and prepossessing and rude: a masterful combination. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

If through no fault of his own the hero is crushed by a bulldozer in Act II, we are not impressed. Even though life is often like this - the absconding cashier on his way to Nicaragua is killed in a collision at the airport, the prominent statesman dies of a stroke in the midst of the negotiations he has spent years to bring about, the young lovers are drowned in a boating accident the day before their marriage - such events, the warp and woof of everyday life, seem irrelevant, meaningless. They are crude, undigested, unpurged bits of reality - to draw a metaphor from the late J. Edgar Hoover, they are "raw files." But it is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer in Act II there will be some reason for it, and not just some reason but a good one, one which makes sense in terms of the hero's personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him. ~ Bernard Knox

The way she looks right now, you have to think about multiple car pile-ups. Imagine two bloodmobiles colliding head on. The way she looks, you'd have to think of mass graves to even log thirty seconds in the saddle.
Think of spoiled cat food and ulcerated cankers and expired donor organs.
That's how beautiful she looks. ~ Chuck Palahniuk