Thomas De Quincey Quotes

The literary story is a story that deals with the complicated human heart with an honest tolerance for the ambiguity in which we live. No good guys, no bad guys, just guys: that is, people bearing up in the crucible of their days and certainly not always - if ever - capable of articulating their condition.

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint.

People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.

What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ear have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

Everybody has a lot of darkness in them because without that you're not a whole person.

One of the things that makes Hamlet unique among Shakespeare's characters is his courage to face up to the darker elements of his personality.

Those things interest me a lot in songwriting - the human nature of how people think, and the muck that we wind up in.

People are composed of many things, and in my work, what influences me is the complexity of people - the chiaroscuro of dark and light. When I play a strong guy, I try to find, where is he weak? And, conversely, when I play a weak guy, where is he strong?

Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.

Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything except his own nature.

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

No person and no character is beyond redemption, ultimately. That's the great thing about playing a character that has kind of a dark side; there's room to explore the opposite.

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.

Everyone on the planet has a dark and a light. That's a multi-dimensional character.

Loki in 'Thor' is the most incredible springboard into a sort of excavation of the darker aspects of human nature. So that was thrilling, coming back knowing that I'd built the boat and now I could set sail into choppier waters.

I became the stage for the great argument between Nietzsche and Rousseau. I was the extra ready to take on all the roles.

As human beings, we are all flawed. And just like there is a good side, there is also a bad side waiting to find its way out.

I try to find what makes even the worst, most despicable character sympathetic at his or her core.

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

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves.

Every good story is about who we are and our struggle to define ourselves.

I like to play people who are deeply flawed, and I want to find the good nature in them. I even try to be kind to myself when I've made big mistakes.

Mike and I are always drawn to the idea that there is light and dark inside every being, rather than the old two-dimensional trope of good versus evil.

I think we are drawn to anti-heroes because that is what most of us are most of the time and it is good to see that we are heroic.