Being on the run wasn't fun, but it was something I had to do. I was actually working in legitimate jobs. I wasn't living on people's credit cards. I was living like a character out of a movie. It was performance art.
Every character in a story, I thought when I had folded up the phone, has both a purpose and a secret purpose.
All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?
Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.
If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?
Sympathy compounded of liking and compassion in varying proportions evidently seemed to Jane Austen the most natural inventive to imaginative interest in a character.
It [enlightenment] has not come to you by means of teaching! And-thus is my thought, oh exalted one,-nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! (character of Siddhartha, speaking to the Buddha)
He (William Cort) had some desire to be successful, but it did not burn so strongly in him that he was prepared to overcome his character to achieve it.
There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing. By God, sir, you are a character.
Mine could not be a story about the building of character, but about its erosion, about the slow accumulation of small forces and events that ultimately dries the soul and leaves the heart empty.
I've come to the conclusion that liking a person we are required to have dealings with is not of paramount importance. But respect is crucial, on both sides, as is tolerance, and a depth of understanding of those influences that sculpt a character.
Every test successfully met is rewarded by some growth in intuitive knowledge, strengthening of character, or initiation into a higher consciousness.
I am concerned with facts of quite unverifiable intrinsic value, but which, by their absolutely unexpected violently fortuitous character, and the kind of associations of suspect ideas they provoke.
A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss.
The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older.
I would so hate to be a first-person character! Always on your guard, always having people read your thoughts!
Valor in the leader is often an expression of the leader's character, fortitude, grace, vulnerability, openness, and honesty.
You know you are a writer when characters inside your brain keep demanding, 'This is my story! Now tell it or I will never leave you alone!
Never be anxious about maintaining the position you occupy. Be anxious about maintaining your good character and you will never lose your leadership influence!
Craving for power, titles and promotion to high places is not a tool for carving impacts in the heart the world. High positions polluted by bad character are the poisons that dehydrate the world of positive virtues.
