David O. Russell Quotes

We're all complex human beings, and if some of that complexity shows through, I think it's advantageous for the movie.

I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.

For me, I start at the place that my characters are human. I start at the place that they are onions that are layered and meant to be peeled, just as we as human beings are.

I like playing human beings - I don't believe in good or bad. I don't believe in black and white. I believe in different tonalities. I believe in different layers of emotions and states of mind. I believe in characters that can be human.

I just always look for stuff that has a character-driven thing.

If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation.

What's the trick to writing a great female character? Make her human.

I like to think that even with some of the more intense ones sometimes there is humour in there, you try to make a complete human being, whether the guy is good or bad.

I try to give both my heroes and villains an emotional dimensionality which provides the motivation for their actions.

I'm drawn to villains that are three-dimensional and raw and that I can kind of see in my own life.

What I like writing about are people's relationships, not necessarily great big dramatic things but the smaller things in life and how they affect characters and challenge and change the people that they are. I do like a happy ending, so my books have to have a happy ending.

The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.

The novelist must ground his work in faithful study of human nature.

Being a writer is an endless study in human transition and lessons learned or forgotten or misapplied.

The writers are writing human beings, and they're writing about the human condition and how difficult it is to function in that condition. I think it's one of the charms of the show, the idea of redemption and working towards becoming better people, for everybody involved.

I feel like, whatever movie I was making, there would always be moments of human intimacy and insight into a little bit of what makes us tick as people.

At one point, I was just perceived as only being angry, but now I'm being perceived as angry, peaceful, and spiritual.

We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings.

Each of my novels features a protagonist undertaking a difficult personal journey. On the way, each of these characters - mostly female - discovers something about herself and at the same time makes an impact on other people's lives.

I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated.

I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.

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

I do sometimes play characters that are a bit ambiguous. You've got to be brave about that sort of stuff. I like the sense of people not feeling too secure, not immediately knowing what they have in front of them.

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.

I am drawn to characters that go on journeys, characters that are real people, that have life.