Terry Pratchett Quotes

I agree with myself on 80 percent of things, but when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning, I still have inner debates about the right thing to do.

A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They'll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing.

We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.

I've always been at war with myself, for right or wrong.

The tension between 'yes' and 'no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot', makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

I like playing flawed characters, people who aren't perfect.

I think many people have contradictions to them and I love characters that deal with those contradictions.

The beauty of the characters on 'Justified' is that all the human beings that are written are all flawed. Even with the good guys, you see darkness surface.

All of my close friends are emotional train wrecks. This is what makes our lives interesting - constantly doubting ourselves, worrying, wondering if we've made a mistake. Could we have done better? Are we good people? Are we bad people?

With all the main characters that I write, it's always very important to me that they have good and bad aspects of their personality. It's important to me that they're complicated and that they're human.

I'm trying to make really flawed characters that have got redeeming features so people can say, 'I don't really like that character, but I can understand a bit where they've come from.'

I enjoy played flawed men who are pushed to the limit, who make mistakes and then have to recover.

I think conflicted characters are always more interesting.

The sad truth is, there's more Walter White in me than I'd care to admit, because if I truly was as kind as people think I am, I wouldn't be able to write Walter White.

I think all interesting characters have some kind of a complex.

The more shaded, flawed characters that are struggling, I think there's something very relatable about that.

I try to give both my heroes and villains an emotional dimensionality which provides the motivation for their actions.

With my physicality and my face, I don't think I could pull off a completely righteous guy. There's something devious about my eyes. I like characters with flaws and to see how they overcome those flaws. I want to play real people, and they're flawed, not perfect.

I'm a sucker for a screwed-up protagonist. We all have issues.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.

I think that Gollum is really the character who is a very human character, and he's very flawed, like most humans are, and has good and bad sides.

I like playing characters with internal problems.

I don't know if I'm so righteous.

I don't understand my own sporadic collapses into passivity. Perhaps I never will.