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
Related I love great writing. I like interesting characters. I like to work with people who push me to be be... JULIE ANN EMERY I AM NOT A WRITER. My characters simply commandeer my fingertips, writing their own destinies. T.N. SUAREZ During all of my writing career - this includes when I was writing plays and my other screenplays - ... ASGHAR FARHADI What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting char... MIKE BIRBIGLIA For the most part, my characters don't talk to me. I like to lord over them like some kind of be... SARAH MACLEAN I really fall in love with my characters, even the bad ones. I love getting together with them. They... JACKIE COLLINS The hardest part about writing fiction is finding long stretches of time to do it: for me, this mean... J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN I was embarrassingly well-versed in Marvel lore, so it was pretty easy to slip into that world. But ... BRIAN K. VAUGHAN That's the whole point of writing to me - I put my characters under incredible duress, and from ... R. A. SALVATORE I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think ... JEFFREY EUGENIDES I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting ro... ELIZABETH MERIWETHER The Only Way Out Is To DIE!!!! BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE I think my characters with my fingers, I think my characters with my guts. But when I say I think th... A. S. BYATT To me I don't deal with stress well at all, and it is stressful enough for me to deal with my ow... DOUG JONES My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a ye... CYNTHIA VOIGT teacher:"I'm teacher, not because i want to teach children something. I am teacher just because I li... MY TEACHER I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church. NICHOLAS SPARKS These are unusually mature, complex characters. They do bad things for their own reasons, but that d... ANNA PAQUIN And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not hav... CASSANDRA CLARE Writing has definitely been a refuge for me, something I needed to do in order to survive. AUGUST WILSON I was too ashamed and afraid to confide in friends, and wanted to convince others and myself that my... PENNY JORDAN My face lends itself to austere characters, and unless they're two-dimensional, I will do them. ... CHARLES DANCE wo chhod dete hain jb hm tnha hote hain
wo paas hote hain jb mere paas hazaro hopte hain. SONYY TYAGI Nobody's going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should ... LAURYN HILL I really enjoy the writing process because I can do it from my house. I can create these characters ... RICKY SCHRODER I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do no... IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH I enjoy clothes. My mother tells me how, even as a kid, I used to choose my own clothes. I have a fe... DULQUER SALMAAN I feel a bit like Ellen Glasgow (I think it was) who said that she was the master and characters did... JAMES GUNN In creative writing, I teach that characters arise out of our need for them. MARLON JAMES I'm attracted to films that have strong female characters because there are strong female charac... RYAN GOSLING I trust my characters. They know their stories better than I do. RAYNE HALL Delicious days ahead for solitude and writing and, oh yes, the holiday meal with family. Live with m... STELLA ATRIUM What I used to do between writing fits was feed my kids, ride my horse and go shopping for cat and d... ANNE MCCAFFREY They wanted me to do what I could do, doing things on my own, so I'd be ready for college. ASHLEY GROTJAHN There appears to be something to do with vehicles and movement that stimulates my writing. J. K. ROWLING I like to oversee what I do, so I have a hand in writing my songs. I also have people there to help ... CIARA I do a lot of co-writing with my producer RedOne, and then a lot on my own. I just like to be creati... AUSTIN MAHONE What is writing but an expression of my own life? ZANE GREY To me, the pinnacle of my career is writing for youth. I can die happy: I have succeeded in doing wh... JEWELL PARKER RHODES I came here for my own races. They asked me to do the team pursuit. It's not really my thing but for... CHAD HEDRICK To the image of the characters, I do change my appearance. For example, I gain weight and I lose wei... MIN-SIK CHOI When I do my job, I dive into these characters and try to flush something out of myself into these c... SAM WORTHINGTON Even when I was rebelling against my father, the point was to follow my own intuition and instinct. KANGANA RANAUT Ah, much deluded! lay aside Thy threats, and anger misapplied! Art not afraid with sounds ... JOHN MILTON When I am writing, I'm very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading. GRAHAM SWIFT I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But t... DOROTHY ALLISON My truest passion is writing, so I continue to do that on my own while seeing what all the buzz is a... DYLAN PENN The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I ma... CANDACE CAMP From Ernest Hemingway's stories, I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by my ch... NADINE GORDIMER After so many books and so many years of writing, I have a good idea of my strengths and weaknesses.... WALTER DEAN MYERS I suppose I'm always looking for a sort of acuity of perception either in my characters or about... DEBORAH EISENBERG One of the things I love about writing is the way you can use what you know and what you've expe... KATE GRENVILLE I'm a massive daydreamer. I'm constantly lost within my own fantasies and my own thoughts pe... EMILY BROWNING I have always liked it, it is still my favorite book. I do not like my writing, but I like this book... WILLIAM GOLDMAN In general, I think writing characters, no one is 100 percent good or bad, and certainly, the bad ch... DARREN STAR When I graduated, I was director of my school's sketch comedy group, and I knew that I wanted to... RACHEL BLOOM Writing eases my suffering... writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence. GAO XINGJIAN My biggest fear in writing 'Gossip Girl' was that the characters would sound like stereotypi... CECILY VON ZIEGESAR For me, writing, drawing, and political activism are three separate pursuits; each has its own inten... GUNTER GRASS God bless my daddy, ... He was the genius who created this wonderful menagerie of characters. A monk... DEAN YOUNG Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen yourself? I believe in writing your own... CHARLOTTE ERIKSSON I always tell my students to complicate your characters: never make it easy for the reader. Nobody i... MARLON JAMES It was just me in my basement honing my skills, hearing songs on the radio and trying to manipulate ... CLINTON SPARKS From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrat... ABBAS KIAROSTAMI I was a dandelion puff...Some saw the beauty in me and stooped quietly to admire my innocence. Other... NICOLE BAILEY-WILLIAMS My films do have characters who have trouble escaping the world around them. LASSE HALLSTROM But I don't want to write my own fiction,' Cath said, as emphatically as she could. 'I don't want to... RAINBOW ROWELL I actually love writing for teens best. I had such an awful time in my own teen years - I love havin... MEG CABOT I enjoy pushing my characters to the limit. No matter how far out there I go, I look for things that... DANA CARVEY What I wanted to do was to earn enough money to pay for my mother's house. When my mother passed... DOROTHEA BENTON FRANK My publishers are wonderful because they have let me write what I wanted to. They're wise enough... ELIZABETH KOSTOVA I start writing with only the vaguest idea about who my characters are and what is going to happen, ... KAREN ROBARDS When I started writing a business column 15 years ago, I knew I'd found the perfect job for myse... ALLAN SLOAN From Ernest Hemingway's stories, I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by m... NADINE GORDIMER I am writing in despair. I am cursing the day of my birth just like Job. I would have wished a quick... GAO ZHAN I have my outlet for my humor through my characters, and I also have the intimacy of rapport with my... FLIP WILSON It feels like I'm starting to come into my own in terms of where I want to go artistically, towa... JESSICA ALBA When I started writing it was kind of hard getting people to do my stuff. They' say they couldn&... OTIS BLACKWELL Writing is the dragon that lives underneath my floorboards. The one I incessantly feed for fear it m... QUENTIN R. BUFOGLE I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's will... ELIZABETH STROUT I make a rod for my own back because people see my novels as quasi documentaries. But it is never hi... CHRISTOPHER KOCH I'd like to work more, but I don't just want to do kind of generic characters. I want to do ... JACQUELINE BISSET I needed to lead my team. They were relying on me, and I had to win it for them. BARRY WILSON I write because, if I don't, my characters will murder me in my sleep. ASTRID 'ARTISTIKEM' CRUZ I get very involved in my characters. Sometimes I have a very hard time separating my characters fro... ALEXIA FAST I had done 'Mystic River' and 'The Woodsman' and they were both internalized characters, characters ... KEVIN BACON I need to have some depth in my characters. That's why they are all Bengalis. I can't imagin... UPAMANYU CHATTERJEE I came to love, I came into my own. THEODORE ROETHKE I've been with Life now for seventeen years and I have written several articles for them and wil... GORDON PARKS What always leads me in terms of my movies are characters. TONY SCOTT What comes easiest for me is dialogue. Sometimes when my characters are speaking to me, I have to sl... RICHARD RUSSO While I wasn't very good at much else in school, in my creative-writing classes or when we had t... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN There are very few works of fiction that take you inside the heads of all characters. I tell my writ... JULIA GLASS My characters are always on the outside; the spotlight's not on them. But they do get somewhere. JEANETTE WINTERSON My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist... S. E. HINTON It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wro... KURT VONNEGUT With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about. WALTER DEAN MYERS My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dea... MARY SHELLEY My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dea... My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dea... MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
More John Scalzi
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JOHN SCALZI If you’re the best that the Earth has got to offer, it’s time we bend over and get a tentacle ri... JOHN SCALZI How do you like your peace now, motherfucker? JOHN SCALZI This is my rife. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rife is my best friend. It is my l... JOHN SCALZI The universe is a big place. Maybe we're not in the best neighborhood. JOHN SCALZI Part of what makes us human is what we mean to other people, and what people mean to us. I miss mean... JOHN SCALZI After another few days, I noticed I became annoyed whenever I would actually have to ask Asshole for... JOHN SCALZI Many BrainPal users find it useful to give their BrainPal a name other than BrainPal. Would you like... JOHN SCALZI I've always liked swimming, so long as my head's above water. JOHN SCALZI I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it w... 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JOHN SCALZI My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of so... JOHN OLIVER Protest and anger practically always derives from hope, and the shouting out against injustice is al... JOHN BERGER No man is to be credited for his mere authority's sake, unless he can show Scripture for the mai... JOHN WYCLIFFE By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Am... JOHN ROBERTS Human beings, we have dark sides; we have dark issues in our lives. To progress anywhere in life, yo... JOHN NOBLE Learn as many mistakes and what not to do while your business or product is small. Don't be in s... DAYMOND JOHN Being thrown into the fire and getting the thing turned around in a hurry made it more difficult. Th... JOHN ELWAY This Constitution was not made for a day, nor is it composed of such flexible materials as to be war... JOHN TYLER Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. JOHN LENNON Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute. JOHN MORTIMER No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent. JOHN JAY Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself. JOHN LOCKE High School is like a spork: it's a crappy spoon and a crappy fork, so in the end it's just ... JOHN MAYER When I was growing up in rural Alabama, it was impossible for me to register to vote. I didn't b... JOHN LEWIS The documented incidences of voter fraud are very rare, yet throughout the country, forces have mobi... JOHN LEWIS Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the ... JOHN CALVIN I was introduced to the Turducken in New Orleans. And it wasn't Thanksgiving. Glenn at the Gourm... JOHN MADDEN Christians were instructed to serve others, and the thanksgiving was for the grace of God and the fa... JOHN CLAYTON Is it possible that the portrait of the divine Son of God is an exaggeration, at best, or a complete... JOHN CLAYTON Was the real Jesus of history one and the same as the Christ of faith whom we read about in the New ... JOHN CLAYTON I believe any question that man can ask has a reasonable answer-at least an answer that is as consis... JOHN CLAYTON Almost every time I am in a lectureship on a college campus, young people will say, If there is a Go... JOHN CLAYTON I guess none of us like to look back in our lives to a time when we made poor judgments and foolish ... JOHN CLAYTON In the surface of the paper there is only length and width-there is no such thing as thickness. JOHN CLAYTON Why is it any more reasonable to believe that God has always been than it is to say that matter has ... JOHN CLAYTON What is the origin of God? JOHN CLAYTON The emphasis on the birth of Christ tends to polarize our pluralistic society and create legal and e... JOHN CLAYTON The denominational world tries to pressure its members to focus on the birth of Christ, but in doing... JOHN CLAYTON Not only are Christians writing about Jesus, but also Communists, Jews, atheists and agnostics are t... JOHN CLAYTON There was no instruction to be thankful that the Christians were special people, chosen people. Ther... JOHN CLAYTON It is my fervent hope and prayer that by exposing my mistakes and by pointing out the things that we... JOHN CLAYTON We are assuming that we exist, that there is reality, and that the matter of which we are made is re... JOHN CLAYTON The purpose of this study is to offer a logical, practical, pragmatic proof of the existence of God ... JOHN CLAYTON Since I was an atheist for many years and came to believe in God through my studies in science, it f... JOHN CLAYTON How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days. JOHN BURROUGHS You wouldn't do something for a receiver to catch the ball if the quarterback couldn't throw... JOHN MADDEN I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful. I'... ELTON JOHN The prison-industrial complex, poverty, and the school system has more effect on a young black male ... JOHN LEGEND I have learned in fashion to be a little savage. JOHN FAIRCHILD Perhaps they thought I was on a fact-finding mission, never for one moment thinking that a man of my... JOHN PRESCOTT My consultant keeps telling me sudden death could come at any moment. JOHN TAVENER As you grow older, you learn a few things. One of them is to actually take the time you've allot... JOHN BATTELLE When California was wild, it was the floweriest part of the continent. JOHN MUIR Inherent in architecture, it involves everything in life so that there is absolutely no end to it. B... JOHN LAUTNER My folks always let me go to the movies every Saturday. We were really motion-picture goers. JOHN WAYNE I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That's why I started in with the prop... JOHN WAYNE I've loved reading all my life. JOHN WAYNE Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly li... JOHN WAYNE I'd read up on the history of our country and I'd become fascinated with the story of the Al... JOHN WAYNE Get off your butt and join the Marines! JOHN WAYNE Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that... JOHN WAYNE Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity - and I don't mean simple - it&... JOHN WAYNE In westerns, you meet a hardy bunch of characters. There is no jealousy on such pictures. JOHN WAYNE I was sure I'd set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the ... JOHN WAYNE I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers ... JOHN WAYNE All I'm for is the liberty of the individual. JOHN WAYNE Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes. JOHN WAYNE When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I'm not going to do anything tha... JOHN WAYNE You learn a lot more from the lows because it makes you pay attention to what you're doing. JOHN ELWAY I've experienced the highest of highs and lowest of lows. I think to really appreciate anything ... JOHN ELWAY If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer ... JOHN WOODEN Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't i... JOHN LENNON Take care, be kind, be considerate of other people and other species, and be loving. JOHN LITHGOW Buildings should serve people, not the other way around. JOHN PORTMAN No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent. JOHN DONNE Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking. JOHN MCCARTHY If you don't interfere with me, I'll always do something really good. JOHN MALKOVICH I think people took Grenada for what it turned out to be, which was a very specific incident and fro... JOHN NEGROPONTE Generalizations, like brooms, ought not to stand in a corner forever; they ought to sweep as a matte... JOHN LUKACS Well, if you're true to yourself you're going to be true to everyone else. JOHN WOODEN The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. JOHN MILTON I'm not interested in my legacy. I made up a word: 'live-acy.' I'm more interested i... JOHN GLENN The loss of wealth is loss of dirt, as sages in all times assert; The happy man's without a shir... JOHN HEYWOOD Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness. JOHN HEYWOOD Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake? JOHN HEYWOOD When all candles be out, all cats be grey. JOHN HEYWOOD Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar. JOHN CIARDI It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad y... JOHN CIARDI What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks ... JOHN CIARDI Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it! JOHN CIARDI A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students. JOHN CIARDI Poetry lies its way to the truth. JOHN CIARDI Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen. JOHN CIARDI Nothing goes further toward a man's liberation than the act of surviving his need for character. JOHN CIARDI The day will happen whether or not you get up. JOHN CIARDI You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone. JOHN CIARDI Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they hav... JOHN CIARDI The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it. JOHN CIARDI With any of the movies I've had a chance to do, or any of the TV shows I've had a chance to ... JOHN CENA The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undi... JOHN CHEEVER Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best. JOHN WEBSTER Old friends are best. JOHN SELDEN They say stay in the lines, but there's always something better on the other side. JOHN MAYER Rome was not built in one day. JOHN HEYWOOD You win by working hard, making tough decisions and building coalitions. JOHN ENGLER I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the ... JOHN MCGAHERN The last thing on my mind was to be an actor, but I had a crush on a cute girl in the drama departme... JOHN RATZENBERGER He who laughs most, learns best. JOHN CLEESE Some people feel fulfillment from a bitter end - it gives them some sort of sense of reality. But, w... JOHN BOYEGA I've never eaten just a few bites of things I liked in my life. JOHN MADDEN The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team. JOHN WOODEN A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment. JOHN WOODEN Just try to be the best you can be; never cease trying to be the best you can be. That's in your... JOHN WOODEN If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? JOHN WOODEN Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. JOHN WOODEN Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing. JOHN LOCKE It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all... JOHN LOCKE It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the tr... JOHN LOCKE The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it. JOHN LOCKE It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a ... JOHN LENNON I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people cal... JOHN LENNON I believe time wounds all heels. JOHN LENNON The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. I... JOHN LENNON When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have... JOHN LENNON If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, th... JOHN LENNON I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always... JOHN LENNON