Diana Wynne Jones Quotes

With any character, I try to focus more on who the character is and how they got to be who they are.

Real good-breeding is independent of the forms and refinements of what has assumed to itself the name of society.

Give me the character and I will forecast the event.

I'm fascinated with psychology, and with why a person walks the way they walk or why they walk into a room the way they do or why we are the way we are, and it's not exclusive to the psychology of a character.

[On Peter III:] He did not have a bad heart; but a weak man usually has not.

Anatomize the character of a successful hostess and the knife will lay bare the fact that she owes her position to one of three things: either she is liked, or she is feared, or she is important.

People respond to political characters in archetypal ways. A fun game is to think of a politician and ask, "Which god is that? Are they like Aries? Are they like Athena?"

Sometimes I think that people's characters get forged, at least in part, from their names.

Yeah, my role is gonna be a character by the name of Yondu. And there's gonna be more of Yondu. Yondu is gonna be even more handsome. Perhaps maybe Yondu will add some more bling to his teeth and wear some more jewelry. I don't know. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I've got my fingers crossed that we'll flush out the character even more.

PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

A forte always makes a foible.

In describing someone's character, I reveal my own.

Now for the hitch in Jane's character,' he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. 'The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble!

I don't think anybody deals well with tragedy or grief, but maybe my characters are particularly bad at it. Which is why I love them.

The more you humanize superhero characters, the more they're relatable. The more they have a vulnerable point, whether it's emotionally or their superpower, or whatever, we relate the superpower or the loss of a superpower to their emotions. It's just fun to walk through that.

I think I gravitate towards characters who are slight outsiders. It's fun to play a character that wants so badly to be included in the normal activities of teenage life, but lacks the literal hardware to do it.

I like to have a much greater base and know a lot more about my character before I begin to fill the person. So a lot of it really entails sit-downs with them, determining who she is, where she came from, and why she reacts a certain way, and then I was really able to expand upon a lot of that and create a lot of that story on my own.

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power.

I really liked it [The Andromeda Strain], and I don't know that it ever had the effect they were hoping for. I don't know if they got the audience we were hoping for. But I thought it was very fun, and I loved the character [Jack Nash] I was playing.

For me, I just like to be as fun as possible, but I do like to bring a lot to a character. Given the script or the show, I know my boundaries, limits, and how far I can go with it. As far as me choosing these characters that have a lot of personality, I don't necessarily think it's intentional. I just think that I try and come up with a backstory of who they are, depending on the script or how rounded these characters are, and just go from there.

Doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaves himself.

In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.

It is quite impossible to understand the character of a person from one action, however striking that action may be.

Showing the addiction and unusual sexual practices are ways of just outlining a much bigger character trait.

... it's always determined characters who make the greatest fools.