Arundhati Roy Quotes

To me, my characters are more real than most people I meet.

The main characters for 'The Seer and the Sword' made an appearance one night and then haunted me for over five years before I began to write them down. Does that count as inspiration? For me, characters tend to show up, stay on to help with the work of writing their stories, and then occasionally deign to visit after a book is finished.

I know authors shouldn't play favorites with books, but 'Release Me' really is right up there for me. The characters truly came alive on the page and drove the story as much as I did from behind the scenes. It was a pleasure to write, and I'm so thrilled that it's the first of a trilogy because I get to spend more time with the characters.

My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book about them. Then, they become so real to me I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.

I don't ever really know where I get my characters from.

Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash.

The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.

I discovered that writing was very nice indeed when I was very young, and I never changed. I don't think my style has changed very much at all - though I hope what I say is a bit more interesting. It's about getting to know a character and loving them, I think.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

Writing a book for me, I expect, is very similar to the experience of reading the book for my readers.

I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.

I like all my characters in one way or another, or at least I understand them.

Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

The characters in my stories, whether historical or fictional, usually prove to be a compilation of influences taken from differing sources, but never drawn from one model.

No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written.

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head.

After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction.

Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.

I'm at the mercy of whatever character comes into my head.

There are bits of me in all my characters.

There is always going to be a little bit of me in each character.

When I'm writing a story, which takes me a year or more, I can feel my character living with me - they're responding to whatever funny, familial, or social situation I'm in, and I think about their responses constantly.

I always find stuff in my characters to relate to.