John Sandford Quotes

I'm so sick of hearing how there's no strong roles for women. I don't care about strong roles. I just want to see women who are characters! A nun, a serial killer, a housewife, as long as there's some depth there.

I portray female characters, so I have the opportunity to change the way people look at them. Even if I wasn't consciously doing that, it would happen anyway just because of how I present as a woman, or as a person. I present in a way that's not stereotypical, even if I'm playing a stereotypical role.

There are so many female roles - particularly for young women - that are just somebody's girlfriend or somebody's daughter, or that are accessories to the main story rather than being three-dimensional characters.

I'm drawn to female characters; not all of them are strong characters.

There's no need for a female character that does things like a male character; that's not what makes interesting female characters in my view.

James Patterson has a way with female characters. He understands women in a way that a lot of male writers don't.

I don't like the idea of playing a one-dimensional character who is just fearless, strong, and killer and has instincts and just thrives in dangerous circumstances - that's really boring to me, and I don't think it represents what most women feel inside.

I won't take parts where the female character has no substance.

I think part of the pressure put on 'strong female characters' comes from the fact that there is so often 'the team girl,' who must be all things to all people. Part of avoiding that is having as many female characters as I can, and allowing them to thrive in their own right, not inside a framework they didn't ask for and don't want.

Male playwrights, on the whole, are probably more interested in male characters. They need women characters to be the women in their lives or to be the domestic difficulty.

I became interested in educating people in the variety of ways in which women can express their emotion. Which is much easier to do in a large role than in a supporting role to a male protagonist. In general, the women in a supporting role to a male protagonist - cry a lot.

It's not often you get female characters who don't fit into a box.

It's great to have female characters that have depth that you can explore instead of being the decoration or the girlfriend or the wife.

Why was it important for women to be only nice? Why can't she have dark layers? So when they came to me - films like 'Maqbool' and 'Astitva' - they just grabbed me, and I wanted to be part of them.

I've always been so uninterested in playing any kind of archetype of some pure, innocent, virginal woman. I just don't believe it.

Nobody expects girls to do something smart or give one liners in a film.

I'm not sure why it's taken so long, but I think people are relating to strong female leads.

I like women in film. I like women in general, but I especially like to show them on film. They are not ciphers.

I don't write women who are weak or simpering.

You ask how I feel to be the first female president in southern Africa? It's heavy for me. Heavy in the sense that I feel that I'm carrying this heavy load on behalf of all women.

Women are never the protagonists; we're always reactionary against everything that's done to us. I like people who write for women that have got a bit more about them.

Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.

It was trying to break down the stereotypes and it was the kind of thing where, for the first time, women were on a par and not seen as just objects. Though girls were objectified still.

And one of the things that I learned was you can't generalise at all about a woman in a veil. You can't think you know her story, because she will confound you over and over again. She may be an engineer or a diplomat or a doctor. Or she may be an unbelievable babe with bleached hair down to her waist.

In our society, the women who break down barriers are those who ignore limits.