George Saunders Quotes

If I don't fall in love with my characters, I cannot shoot.

I love to evoke the bones and meat and thoughts of characters.

Every character is a baby. You can't choose between them. If you can, you didn't do your job. You have to fall in love with every character.

I love... What's gratifying to me is when you make/create a character and a human being, a person who lives entirely and who has their own existence, just merely from the words on a page.

I just love to be able to actually build a character.

The more I love the character, the harder it is to get it wrong. I have to get to a point that I can speak for them.

I would love to be able to play some characters on television that are similar to some of the indie film roles I've done, that have been so close to my heart.

I love reading for a character I have no business reading for.

I think you have to love the characters that you write. I don't know how you could possibly write a TV show where you didn't love the characters.

Every pilot I've ever written, I've fallen deeply and madly in love with. It's the only way I work.

I love making characters real and believable, through my own experience and choices.

I couldn't give 'Vikings' away - I mean, I love these people. And I'm not sure anyone else writing it would necessarily have the same feeling towards the characters that I do.

If I love the character, then that's all that matters to me. It doesn't really matter what genre it is.

I love the characters I've had the opportunity to play.

I try and find a way to love every character I play.

A new character is like bringing a new human being into your life.

I love all the characters I write.

It doesn't matter whether characters are real people or not; if they're not vivid on the page, then the reader doesn't care about them that much, and, if the reader doesn't care about them that much, then they don't care what happens to them.

I write about relationships and I try to create real-life characters.

I really become the characters when I'm writing them. I'll become one or two of them more than others, I'm consistent that way.

I remember when I was a kid, I loved Sherlock Holmes. I thought Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the greatest writers, because I felt I knew Sherlock Holmes. He existed to me. When I went to England the first thing I did was go to Baker Street to look for his house. I think you've got to try to make all of your characters as empathetic and realistic as possible.

The best books come from someplace deep inside.... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either.

When you have a set of characters, you have to fall in love with them and care about them as each individual character.

I don't think I've seen that sort of character in a long time in this genre because again, there was a time when you could have quirky, strange characters that you grew to love, you didn't quite understand, you know, and then all of a sudden they became almost cardboard cutouts for awhile. You kind of know the guy, what his deal is - this guy's hard to figure out. He has some strange habits, but, you learn to love him and you discover more about him, where it comes from.

When I create characters, I create a world to inhabit and they begin to feel very real for me. I don't belong in a psych ward, I don't think, but they become very real, like my own family, and then I have to say goodbye, close the door, and work on other things.