Morris Gleitzman Quotes

No matter where you come from, we all share the same struggles as human beings, and my beginning is no different.

Every character, before they are heroes or villains, they are human beings.

We're always attracted to characters who are people we could identify with and yet are put through incredibly tortured or difficult circumstances - the idea being that you don't really know who you are until you've been tested or suffered in some way.

I think a lot of people relate to some of my characters' inner struggles.

You say to yourself: 'What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?' and yet I think we're all the same, anywhere. Everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.

I had discovered that I'm much less special than I thought I am. So whatever I find true for myself, other people might also relate to.

The movies and TV shows I like to watch tend to put their characters in situations where they have to dig deeper.

I like it that in many ways we are all the same.

I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.

The ideal way to approach a character is to find something in yourself that relates in some way.

I write human stories. I write about people. Not as a product of their environment. But from the stance that everybody is made of the same thing.

I always felt myself to be an unlucky person like Donald, who is a victim of so many circumstances. But there isn't a person in the United States who couldn't identify with him. He is everything, he is everybody; he makes the same mistakes that we all make.

Pippin chooses love and finds a greater sense of himself at the end of all the madness. I relate to him in many ways. I have been through stuff, thought I knew best, and often been proven wrong.

I enjoy heroines who grow and come into their own during the course of a story.

It's the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

Never underestimate the capacity of another human being to have exactly the same shortcomings you have.

There's no way for me to know, but my best guess, as it must be for everyone, is that other people are pretty much like me.

I don't think I could play a character that I couldn't relate to somehow. I'm not unfamiliar with frustration, anger, shame, helplessness and a load of other emotions that make up our psycho-soup. I try to focus on that frustration, that sense of unfairness, and multiply it.

The writers are writing human beings, and they're writing about the human condition and how difficult it is to function in that condition. I think it's one of the charms of the show, the idea of redemption and working towards becoming better people, for everybody involved.

My journey through life has led me through both light and dark places, and it's because of those experiences that I have learned how to work through my character defects and to help others do the same.

I like playing characters who are fractured, broken. I find that more relatable, for some reason. I don't feel that I'm like that myself by nature, but there's just something that you can really grab hold of if people have a darkness in them, I think.

Everyone is complicated one way or another. But it's interesting to dig into a complicated character, to try to find that within yourself.

The function of the novel is the exploration of the human condition. Really, that's what it's all about.

I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.

I've struggled just as much as anyone else.