Grimes Quotes

A lot of my characters are born out of a small grain in a person that I heighten and take to that next level. They're not based on anyone I've ever met, but they are these extreme versions of something.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.

Sometimes I create a character from a scrap - a mere mention that has been left behind.

Writing, even though it's hard work, is really a joy when you get these characters to come alive. It's hard to trace where they come from. I can't say that I am sitting here one night at nine o'clock and that a character occurs to me. The magic for me happens at the typewriter.

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

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed with confidence. But the truth is my characters start doing and saying things I don't expect.

I've never been comfortable with the idea of using family and friends in stories. Which is why it takes me longer than something else. Because you make them up out of nothing. Doing that is harder.

I just let the character speak to me and things appear.

In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters' lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when I'm getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding.

Usually when you're doing concepts for a character, you just try a couple different things to see what sticks.

What I'm really trying to do is create unique characters.

I take stuff from real life and try to make a character out of it. And I try to live the world of the characters a little bit.

I love creating new characters that are whatever they are.

You have to start from a place of trying to create a character.

When you get a character that you're just starting to work on, it's the most exciting and most terrifying feeling because you have endless hours of diving in, researching, reading, and decision-making.

My struggle over the years has constantly been, it only takes 10 minutes, or an average shower, to come up with a mini-series or two, but it takes a year to draw them. So for me, it's been just trying to find a way to get all these ideas and all these incidents on paper.

For as long as I can remember, I was always creating random characters.

What I'm interested in as an actor is exploring universes that I have not come across before. It's interesting to me to be able to discover new things. I do like fantasies, and I like when film is inspiring and it puts creative ideas into the minds of the audience.

Sometimes you have to search for inspiration with characters, and other times, they just drop out of the sky and arrive.

Every character I've had in my act - none of them have a similar creation story. I actually thought up Peanut and designed him in my head. I described him to a woman that was making soft puppets and she drew up some sketches. And the character came to be just because he popped into my head.

I find it inspiring and I always think when I'm working on something new, whether it's a new kind of character or a new kind of story or new kind of camera, it gets my creative wheels spinning.

But it's hard for me to pinpoint where all my characters and dialogue come from - imagination or real life. My memoir, of course, was all about my past, and many of the short stories cleave very closely to my life, but the more stories I wrote in the collection, the more that seemed to be invented, but who knows... I think I'm writing about a young woman with acne who shoplifts, but I'm really writing about myself.

Writers are magpies, and we collect details about people and we use them for fictional characters.