Claudia Gray Quotes

In a novel, if you're any good, you don't just have good people or bad people. You have complicated people. You have real people.

As a reader, I much prefer to read a book where people embody all kinds of ideas and everybody is making mistakes.

The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.

I'm attracted to playing characters that have flaws.

You have to always try to think about them like real people first, and not just heroes. They have to be real characters. As people do more and more superhero stuff, the characters are what distinguish it, just like in cop shows.

I don't want a perfect character, I want a character who has, as strange as it sounds, some humanity, some flaws, some needs.

I think any character has to be well-rounded, whether they are male or female - they have to be complex and make choices that maybe we don't agree with, you know? I guess that's what makes them human.

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.

Certainly, your characters - whether they are superheroes are not - should have foibles. They should have problems; they should have things that their powers can't solve. That's what makes them nuanced, interesting characters. They can have intense motivations. They should have intense motivations to do what they do.

The truth is that, to me, a likeable character is a character that is really flawed, so I don't know what people mean when they say 'likable.'

If you break things down to goodies and baddies, the baddies are always a bit more alluring in fiction, and that's true from a narrative point of view. But I wanted to write a novel about real life, and real life is a bit more nuanced than that.

The hero is changing in Bollywood, and I approach a hero's role like a character by focusing on its weaknesses. I feel the weaknesses of a character make them more alive, relatable, and human.

No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.

I love to feature children and young adults as real people - flawed, naive, virtuous, venal - but real. I think it adds nuance and depth to the stories that wouldn't exist without them.

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 love it when you like a character, and then she does something you don't like, and you hate her for a while - then you love her again. I'd like to see her have unlikable moments that the audience understands and sympathizes with.

In the best works of fiction, there's no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy's got his reasons.

To me the interesting main character is never the one without flaws.

I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters.

I'm not sure that it's possible to write a novel about people who don't transgress or stumble, people who don't surprise themselves with the things they do, people who can explain all their actions with perfect logical consistency. At least it's not possible for me to write that sort of novel.

I, as a fan of numerous TV shows and movies, know that people mess up. The characters that we love are not always going to act in the ways that we want them to. That's what makes them interesting.

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

What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray.

The function of the novel is the exploration of the human condition. Really, that's what it's all about.

Everyone loves characters that are relatable or who have unique quirks or tragic flaws.