Michael Cunningham Quotes

Flaws make us all human, and you're rooting for characters because of those flaws. It's ageless if you're interested in relationships and the way people can or can't relate to each other.

if an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.

I think the negative traits are what makes us love other human beings, the foibles and the flaws.

I think there is something in my books that says these are people doing their best under difficult circumstances - sometimes they do wrong things and make mistakes, but who doesn't? And who wants to read about somebody who never does?

Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested. Even the real monsters have to have a spark of something you can relate to.

I like telling stories of imperfect people because most people are imperfect.

It's really interesting that, in 'The Avengers,' the character that people relate to is The Hulk, and I think the reason why they relate to The Hulk is because he's fragile and human and faulty.

I think we love watching people that are flawed because we're all flawed.

I can play really terrible human beings, and I seem to have a quality that people can, if not necessarily forgive me those sins, at least cut me some slack.

I love to make even villains people you can relate to. When you find out who did it, I think you almost like the person, which is not easy to do.

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.'

You hope that when you're playing someone possibly unsympathetic that you can bring them something redeeming, something people can hang onto.

I think flawed characters are important, because no one is perfect.

I let characters be human and flawed and relatable. When we do things that aren't that great, we can understand it.

I don't want to watch a show or a movie about the guy who doesn't have any problems, who is sort of a goodie two shoes and just does everything morally right, because that's not the person I relate to. That's not who I am. That's not what anyone is.

Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?

The thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human. They're full of flaws as much as they are full of heroics. I think the reason that people love them and hate them so much is because, in some way, they always see a mirror of themselves in them, and you can always understand them on some level. Sometimes it's a terrifyingly dark mirror that's held up.

I can relate to someone whose life is falling apart, and they are doing the best to get by, using humor to survive. Backstrom really wears his heart on his sleeve and his life is unraveling... I would much rather hang out with that person than a slick procedural detective who has all the answers... it's human, it's frail, it's interesting.

Today, imagine all the love flowing from your heart to all the people who need your love.

And he who has dwelt with his heart alone, Hears all the music in friendship's tone. So better and better I comprehend How sorrow ever would be our friend.

We've endured too many tragedies. And each time I learn the news I react not as a President, but as anybody else would - as a parent.

Before you judge me , try hard to love me , look within your heart Then ask , - have you seen my childhood ?

The more you humanize superhero characters, the more they're relatable. The more they have a vulnerable point, whether it's emotionally or their superpower, or whatever, we relate the superpower or the loss of a superpower to their emotions. It's just fun to walk through that.

Comedy and drama are different sides of the same coin. And the thing about comedy and drama is about likability. It's about character first. It's about story. And for me, it's about empathy, and I think the realer someone is, the further you can go either way with them.

That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.