Miguel Syjuco Quotes

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.

All a writer's characters are imaginary, no matter whether they are based on real people or not. They are people as one imagines them to be.

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?

No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life--the first twenty years of it--had about them something semi-fictitious.

Humanity has this need to hear stories because they connect us with other people, they teach us about our own feelings. We feel less lonely when we see other people going through the same things, even if they're fictional characters.

The movies I make tend not to be quite reality but the characters are inspired by real people and they're always very personal.

Sometimes I pretend not to look at my own characters, because that's like different people getting off with your girlfriend or something.

Nobody ever recognizes themselves unless they are not the character. There are many people who have claimed to be in my books, but unfortunately they were usually people that I didn't know.

I never base characters on real people - you can get into so much trouble that way!

If we show fictional characters doing cool stuff, then girls will want to be it in real life.

I like characters where there's something going on and something to make him real. If you find out what somebody cares about, all of a sudden, the whole world opens up.

As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed.

If there's a message, it's that the unlovable and unattractive parts of ourselves should be embraced. The only real currency between people is what happens when they're not cool. And I hope people feel OK about not being cool.

Hey show some respect. They’re real people with names. Carla and Krissy” He frowned. “Or was it Missy?

I hope that if the people who read my work encounter people in the real world who are like the characters that I write about, that maybe that might make them feel empathy for those people. I know it sounds idealistic in a way, but I do hope that my work maybe changes some minds, and that my work makes readers see people as human that maybe before they read my work they might not have seen as humans, and those people include me and my family and my kids, people in my community.

I think people are people and if their feelings are real and truthful, they can connect.

Atticus, he was real nice." "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.

I really do believe that people surprise you. And one of the powerful things about novels is that they're about characters, and those characters live their lives.

I would like to play some character that's somewhat dramatic. I don't see myself ever becoming that serious, or it sounds weird, but I don't see myself doing something that's really dramatic but somewhat dramatic. I would like to do something that's more real and doesn't have to be laugh out loud funny. I always like whatever I'm involved in... whether it be funny or whether it be somewhat like... I'm not gonna try to get people to really cry.

We all suffer alone in the real world. True empathy's impossible. But if a piece of fiction can alow us imaginatively to identify with a character's pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with their own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple.

The ability to understand people is a choice.

I realized that the people weren't just characters but they were people and they were getting to do something that was so fun and I wanted to be a part of it.

I love playing real people. It's a huge challenge and responsibility which I take on board and which I relish. It also scares me to death. Give me a totally fictional character and I don't have the same sort of responsibility. If, though, I play Sigmund Freud or Robert Maxwell or whoever then there is a responsibility.

Characters on stage, like people in what we refer to as "real life," do not speak to reveal themselves. They do not speak to conceal themselves. They speak to get whatever it is that they want. It is the only reason they speak.

A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221½ B Baker Street and didn't find him.