Quirky Characters Quotes

Goodwill to all.' I know it's techinically 'goodwill to all men,' but in my mind, I drop the 'men' because that feels segregationist/elitist/sexist/generally bad ist. Goodwill shouldn't be just for men. It should also apply to women and children, and all animals, even the yucky ones like subway rats. I'd even extend the goodwill not just to living creatures but to the dearly departed, and if we include them, we might as well include the undead, those supposedly mythic beings like vampires, and if they're in, then so are elves, fairies, and gnomes. Heck, since we're already being so generous in our big group hug, why not also embrace those supposedly inanimate objects like dolls and stuffed animals. I'm sure Santa would agree. 'Goodwill to all. ~ Rachel Cohn

Welcome," the man said in utter contradiction to his urban street clothes. He eyed the vibrator in Cooper's hand but whatever his thoughts were on a guy wielding a vibrator, he kept to himself. "I'll get some candles. ~ Jill Shalvis

I like playing dark, offbeat, quirky characters. ~ Mischa Barton

He held up his hand, and in it was ...
Oh, God.
The neon-pink vibrator, glowing in the dark now. It was following her, stalking her, all the way down the yellow brick road to hell. ~ Jill Shalvis

There are so many quirky characters, it's easy to fall in love with any number of the characters on 'The Carrie Diaries'. ~ Brendan Dooling

Brandon: How does the character fit into the story, how will people expect them to fit into the story, and how, therefore, can I make them incongruous for those expectations? I'm looking for incongruity. Ask yourself why this character cannot fill the role in the plot that they are expected to fulfill. Ask yourself who would be perfect for this role. I'm not going to use that person. ~ Brandon Sanderson

In Chestnut Hill money didn't talk, but it drank, and played a lot of golf. ~ Alistair McHarg

I don't know why Kate was trying to impress him, as far as I could see the guy had all the allure and social grace of a psychotic slug with halitosis and a bad head cold. ~ Sharon Sant

I love every part of the book writing process from the excitement of the initial idea to weaving all the tiny elements of the story from the air. I draw my inspiration from the landscape around me, from quirky characters I meet and from the strange and convoluted thoughts that dance between my ears. ~ JoAnne Graham

There comes a time when a man must rise above shock, the loss of lung, and grape-tossing women to come up with a life-saving plan. Now is that time. ~ Jes Drew

She wished now she'd brought that vibrator as a flashlight instead of leaving it on the couch. ~ Jill Shalvis

It's easier to play quirky characters and hide behind wardrobe and make-up, especially. ~ William Sanderson

No groom.
No electricity.
Stuck in a house with a naked guy.
Screwed. ~ Jill Shalvis

I'm an actor. I have to play weird characters, quirky characters, strange characters, sometimes characters I don't understand. ~ Keke Palmer

Magnus said, in a low voice, "And what's that one?" Alec answered, "Stamina." Magnus stared. "Are you serious?" Alec began to grin. "Yeah." "Really, though," Magnus said. "I want to be clear on this. You're not just saying that to be sexy?" "No," Alec answered, his voice husky, and swallowed. "But I'm glad if it is. ~ Cassandra Clare

It is actually helpful to acknowledge the truth that we are just as quirky as everyone else and that God loves quirky! ~ Stasi Eldredge

I started painting graffiti in the classic New York style of big letters and characters but I was never very good at it. ~ Banksy

Martin heaved a heavy sigh, settling deeper into the cushions of the couch. "Like I said, everyone is the main character in their own story. Even villains."
I shook my head. "I don't know ... Not necessarily. I mean, sometimes the story is bigger than the characters, like Jurassic Park. The Park was really the central focus of the story, and all the characters were secondary to the Park. Their only purpose was to react to the Park."
Martin yawned, set his now empty beer on the coffee table, and closed his eyes. "That's because dinosaurs are awesome. We're all sidekicks to dinosaurs."
"Or dinner. ~ Penny Reid

What you desire, as an actor, is to have an impact. That's why you did it. You want to move people, and you want to resonate with your audience. It's always a great compliment to have people appreciate and speak of the characters. I can go anywhere in the world, to places where people don't actually speak English, and people can say, verbatim, what I said on the show as Mr. Eko, which is great. That's fun! ~ Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Over the years, I've been trying to build a relationship with an audience. I've tried to maintain as much of a low profile as I could so that those characters would emerge and their relationship with audiences would be protected. ~ Kevin Spacey

Her work failed her. She had reached a desperate, claustrophobic stage of being imprisoned halfway in a novel: there was too much behind her for her to retreat and not a glimmer of light ahead. She sat for hours without writing, staring at the last few wrods on the page, seeing no significance in them. Her characters fell into frozen poses, speech died on their lips: they had sat at a banquet for weeks and she had not the power to bring them to their feet again. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

Language is so specific to art, all the way to the past in China. Previously, people were not allowed to include various regional dialects in their films, but in every film that I've made, I've maintained the regional dialects of the characters because I wanted to make films that were locally specific. ~ Jia Zhangke

A brief short story may require only a few paragraphs after the climax. On the other hand, in his massive novel 'The World According to Garp,' John Irving's denouement consisted of 10 separate sections, each devoted to an individual character's fate and each almost a story in itself. ~ Nancy Kress

Should men and women be equal in all things? Absolutely. But I'm old-fashioned in that I like the differences between the sexes. My male characters are neither Neanderthals nor Prince Charmings. They're flawed. ~ Sandra Brown

He comments on how amazing it is that everything in the universe can be described by the twenty-six written characters with which they have been working. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Songs of different moods are like keys, which help me enter the world of my book's characters. ~ Amish Tripathi

ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil. ~ Ambrose Bierce

If you look at my characters as a group, they all have a different relationship with the way that places can signify emotion in them - and the way those bonds can be shattered. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored. I lean more heavily on intuition, and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situation rather than story. Some of the ideas which have produced those books are more complex than others, but the majority start out with the stark simplicity of a department store window display or a waxwork tableau. I want to put a group of characters (perhaps a pair; perhaps even just one) in some sort of predicament and then watch them try to work themselves free. My job isn't to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety - those are jobs which require the noisy jackhammer of plot - but to watch what happens and then write it down. ~ Stephen King

My characters were ... rebelling against something ... My own bad writing. I wouldn't do for my characters what they needed for me to do - be courageous enough in my writing to make them interesting. ~ John Scalzi

When you do your comedy and your drama, your acting style doesn't change. If it's a comedy, the situations and the characters might be a little funnier, but you're just trying to be honest. ~ Jonah Hill

One never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one can not remember what toothpaste they use; what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge; minor ones may be photographed. ~ Graham Greene

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

I can say that I have been a firsthand witness to the Will and Shannon show almost from the beginning. Will treats Shannon like a queen and I know she adores him. Now I have to tell you that I haven't always appreciated this, despite the fact that I received some of the benefit of the royal treatment bestowed upon Shannon. I think 'nauseating' was the term I used to describe them when they were first engaged to be engaged. I think 'unbearable' was another word I used. . . . You'll all start to learn the quirky things about them that I've seen. When they're together, you'll rarely find them more than ten feet apart from each other. I've honestly thought about getting a measuring tape. ~ Tamara Carlisle

Eliot was scornful of idle women readers who imagined themselves the heroines of French novels, and of self-regarding folk who saw themselves in the most admirable character in a novel, and she hoped for more nuanced engagement from her own readers. Even so, all readers make books over in their own image, and according to their own experience. ~ Rebecca Mead

It's funny, because readers think they want the characters to be blissfully happy, but it makes it kind of boring for the reader. ~ L.A. Weatherly

'The Outsiders' cast in particular was a joy to be around - sweet kids, normal goofy teenagers off camera and serious artists on. They were great. I never got them mixed up with the characters, though. Each of them had his own strong personality. ~ S.E. Hinton

My impulse is to create an aesthetic that's about a humanistic approach to a world and trying to create compassion for all the characters. ~ Mike White

You have to live your life like you're pretending. An actor living a character's life. Otherwise you won't take risks. You won't live. ~ Laura Dockrill

You're the girl that I have been wanting. You're the girl that I could see myself with forever. And most importantly, you're the girl that I've fallen in love with. ~ M.S. Watson

When I'm really entrenched in my writing, I seem to go through mini-writer's block cycles that usually last a week or so. They make me moody. My husband has a routine to help me get through the blocks. He forces me to take a day off, and he insists on my relaxing and taking in other forms of art to recharge my creativity. It actually works really well, but whenever I'm that into my work, I won't take a day off willingly.

I do have a system for when I have a novel idea. I like to research a whole lot first and take notes by hand, and then I outline and figure out the plot based on the history and research. Next, I write everything I can as quickly as I can without worrying about grammar or even writing well. Then, I go back and read through and start fixing things. It's kind of like a process to create the framework then I can go back in and make other layers shine.

Making the rest of the layers, really known as the editing process, is where things get crazy. I don't have a system for it because it's kind of a journey of discovery. I'll know things are wrong, but I won't always know how to fix them. When I discover the solution, it might take the story to a place I never would have guessed.

That happened a lot for A White Room. In the beginning I only had the idea for the first half of the story and just the story of Emeline – none of the subplots or stories of the other characters were there yet. Not even John's story. It was just Emeline u ~ Stephanie Carroll

But keep characters in propinquity long enough and a story will always develop a plot. ~ Keith Miller

Giving voice to marginalised characters is extremely important to me. I want to explore the pain of disenfranchisement, the social strata and boundaries we create and how to make them more permeable. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any apparent similarity to real persons is not intended by the author and is either a coincidence or ~ David Foster Wallace

Instead of heading for a big mental breakdown, I decided to have a small breakdown every Tuesday evening. ~ Graham Parke

Christopher throws dandelion head after dandelion head into his bag. It's getting heavy now and his fingers are stained from the work but there are still so many left to kill. His biggest mistake is giving them names. ~ Brian Martinez

Every so often you get to play wonderful characters maybe at the wrong time in your life. Sometimes, you get to play terrible characters at a really great time in your life. Sometimes, the right character comes along at the right time. ~ Jude Law

To me the interesting main character is never the one without flaws. ~ J.J. Abrams

As a rule, I don't worry about genre. I just want to tell a good story, with characters that interest me and my readers. ~ Stephen King

I had never seen anything like New York, and its newness held the promise of my future: dense with the experience I craved - romantic, urbane, intellectual. Looking back on that moment, I believe I was saved from disappointment by the nature of my "great expectations." I honestly wasn't burdened with conventional notions of finding security and happiness. At that time of my life, even when I was "happy," it wasn't because I expected it. That was for characters less romantic than myself. I didn't expect to be rich, well fed, and kindly treated by all. I wanted to live deeply and fully, to embrace whatever the city held for me. ~ Siri Hustvedt

I remember how surprised I was when my first novel was about to be published and I was informed that I could be sued for anything any one of my characters said. 'But I often don't agree with what they say,' I protested. The lawyer was not interested in the clear distinction I make between my own voice and the voices of my characters. Neither, I have found, are many of my readers. ~ Jane Rule

Love hurts.

Think back over romance novels you've loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone.

So don't just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don't satisfy your hero's desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth. Misery accompanies love. It's no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we'll find a way out of the dark.

Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight. ~ Damon Suede

As crime writers, we put these characters, year after year, book after book, through the most horrendous trauma, dealing with grief and death and loss and violence. We can't pretend that these things don't affect these characters; they have to. If they don't, then you're essentially writing cartoons. ~ Mark Billingham