Angelina Jolie Quotes

What I try to do in writing any character is to put myself in his position.

In terms of style, I think the memoirist should have a novelist's skill and all the elements of a novelist's toolbox. When I read a memoir, I want to really, deeply experience what the author experienced. I want to see the characters and hear the way they speak and understand how they think. And so in that way, writing a memoir feels similar to writing a novel.

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world. When I'm not at my desk, the rest of the time, I try to stay in that character and see the world the way that character would It's almost like method acting in a way — keeping the character close the way the actor keeps a script close and always tries to be in character.

If you want anybody to have a different voice, you really have to visualize and hear the voices of all these people. Sometimes when I write with specific actors in mind, it helps.

Once you have your character sitting right there in your head, all you really need to do is wind them up, put them down, and simply write down what they do, say, or think.

What interests me when I'm writing is being able to crawl into a character's head and speak from his or her mouth. It's not pulling the strings on a marionette, it's not playing ventriloquist, and it's not mimicry. It's about inhabiting a character, and, at the same time, being totally unaware of what you've become.

Don't write about a character. Become that character, and then write your story.

As a writer, it is always fun to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

As I write, I try to be the character.

When I write, I try to become different characters.

There are aspects of writing that require you to image yourself in various roles and guises, to stand in the shoes of others, to 'act' on an inner stage.

Well,the fun part of being a writer is that it's like making a wonderful film, with no limit on my budget. I can design the sets, the costume, the lightings, I write the script, and then I get to perform all the roles as I step into each character's skin, zip up, and adopt that point of view. So, to me, they are all compelling and fascinating.

When you're writing a story or an actor playing a role, you should never think of your characters as heroes or villains. You have to think of them as people first.

The joy of writing drama is putting yourself into different people's heads.

What I do in the writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart and skin of a human being who is not myself. It is the act of a writer's imagination that I set the most high.

I think writer is a word without gender, and a good writer observes, absorbs, hopefully empathizes then translates that into character and story. You don’t have to do or be or have experienced, traveled to, but you have to imagine all of that, very well–and believe it completely during the bubble of the work.

If I write a character, instead of looking from the outside, like maybe a journalist would, trying to describe them physically and figuring out what kind of things they might be interested in or have in their house, I don't really do it that way. I try to feel what it would be like to be inside this person, to be them.

I write to be the characters that I am not.

In terms of writing, I think what most fiction writers treasure more than anything is the feeling that they're living for the length of a book inside another person.

Noah Baumbach writing is really wonderful. I think the way he plays out each character with a unique voice is really impressive, and rhythmically his dialogue works.

If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic....Authors arrive at text and subtext in thousands of ways, learning each time they begin anew how to recognize a valuable idea and how to reader the texture that accompanies, reveals or displays it to its best advantage.

I think in a lot of ways, writing, when you're really in there, is like being an actress because you're in somebody else's head.

When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense of their, not my, views.