Character Driven Quotes & Sayings

The World's a Printing-House, our words, our thoughts,
Our deeds, are characters of several sizes.
Each soul is a Compos'tor, of whose faults
The Levites are Correctors; Heaven Revises.
Death is the common Press, from whence being driven,
We're gather'd, Sheet by Sheet, and bound for Heaven. — Francis Quarles

I prefer drama; I think character-driven drama is my favorite kind of stuff to go watch, and I like being challenged by that kind of stuff in that way. — Jacinda Barrett

A person must claim the meaning behind his or her existence. How we live is our final testament to what we believed in and our journey through the corridor of time determines our decisive character. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Women are often pushed into the idea that they write softer, more character-driven jokes. — Allison Silverman

When school districts are measured by how much confidence, worth and hope their graduates have acquired while in school, when the role of education becomes more about nurturing students and a love for learning than standardized test scores, when the term "honor" student stands more for a child's character than than their grades, then schools will again take their role as a place for effective change in America. Until then education will continue to be run by paper chasing, pride driven central office administrators and educational bureaucrats trying to prove their worth to politicians who don't even know our kids. Let our teachers care, let our children thrive. Let our teachers teach. — Tom Krause

What I like in comedies are really two things: stories that are character-driven and stories that are rooted in authenticity. — Alex Karpovsky

Side by side with the limitless possibilities opened up by the new technologies, reflection about international order must include the internal dangers of societies driven by mass consensus, deprived of the context and foresight needed on terms compatible with their historical character. In every other era, this has been considered the essence of leadership; in our own, it risks being reduced to a series of slogans designed to capture immediate short-term approbation. Foreign policy is in danger of turning into a subdivision of domestic politics instead of an exercise in shaping the future. If the major countries conduct their policies in this manner internally, their relations on the international stage will suffer concomitant distortions. The search for perspective may well be replaced by a hardening of differences, statesmanship by posturing. As diplomacy is transformed into gestures geared toward passions, the search for equilibrium risks giving way to a testing of limits. — Henry Kissinger

I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story. — John Irving

I've always liked game shows - the competitive aspect and the character-driven personalities you see. — Apolo Ohno

I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way. — Dana Spiotta

I like characters that do big things boldly and are driven by intensely personal feelings. — Mark Pellegrino

Online theft has changed the business model of filmmaking because the DVD market is very soft. So, more ambitious, compelling, character-driven narrative of a certain budget level isn't really a viable business model in the eyes of the studios right now. — Jon Favreau

What, actually, does it mean to be a tragic figure firmly in the grip of one's daimon? It means to possess great talent, to relentlessly pursue the expression of that talent through the unswerving affirmation of the causa-sui project that alone gives it birth and form. One is consumed by what he must do to express his gift. The passion of his character becomes inseparable from his dogma. Jung says the same thing beautifully when he concludes that Freud "must himself be so profoundly affected by the power of Eros that he actually wished to elevate it into a dogma...like a religious numen."
Eros is precisely the natural energy of the child's organism that will not let him rest, that keeps propelling him forward in a driven way while he fashions the lie of his character-which ironically permits that very drivenness to continue, but now under the illusion of self-control. — Ernest Becker

I don't know for a fact, but I feel fairly certain that the first person who described a movie as 'character driven' had to have been a producer or studio executive. — Steve Erickson

I think a writer's first job is to entertain, even in novels: to tell a compelling story that pulls the reader along toward an end. At the same time, the best stories are character-driven. — Noah Hawley

He was the most persuasive speaker, less for his words than character behind them. He made every listener feel he had done his best to master every aspect of this question, who has been driven by logic to arrive at certain conclusions, and who is disguising from us no argument on either side. — Barbara W. Tuchman

One and all they are driven by the twin engines of ignorance and willful barbarism. You nod, you also are familiar with these two powerful components of our national character, ignorance and willful barbarianism. Yes, everywhere you turn, and even among the most gifted of us, the most extensively educated, these two brute forces of motivation will eventually emerge. The essential information is always missing; sensitivity is a mere veil to self-concern. We are all secret encouragers of ignorance, at heart we are all willful barbarians. — John Hawkes

I'd love to do a Paul Greengrass movie, or something like that, that's a character-driven action film. I'd like someone to make me go to the gym every day, and all that stuff. I don't know. Wherever the good characters are, I tend to try to get a job. It was nice because this was dipping my toe in the action genre. Maybe I might put my foot in, next time. — Carey Mulligan

Richard Curtis, the writer and director of Love Actually, is brilliant at many things, but his genius, I submit, is for thrusting characters into situations in which they feel driven to humiliate themselves. Which is why we love them, especially when it's all in the name of love. He is the Bard of Embarrassment. — David Edelstein

I define backpack journalism as [a] character-driven model done by one person who has got the luxury of time to spend with the subjects, to watch the subjects as the story evolves and change. — Kurt Lancaster

That godfather of the modern action blockbuster, 'The Godfather,' is entirely character driven, propelled by the transformation of a crime lord's youngest son, who breaks bad when he evolves from white-sheep war hero to blood-soaked inheritor of his father's empire. — Steve Erickson

To be perfectly frank: I don't write women's fiction. I write intimate, gritty, realistic, character-driven fiction that happens to be thrown into the women's fiction category. — Jillian Medoff

It is harder to get adult, character-driven material on television than it used to be, but there are lots of other places that you can go to sell it. If you can do it for basic cable or pay cable, we have those outlets. — John Wells

Probably every book I read influenced me in some small way. Authors like Jan Westcott, Kathleen Winsor, Catherine Cookson, Georgette Heyer, and even Barbara Cartland taught me to write character-driven stories. — Virginia Henley

I want to do character driven epic storylines with Throne of Atlantis kicking off. — Geoff Johns

The character I'm playing in the film is this driven, workaholic lawyer who has never lost a case. When I'm playing him ... " He paused, his voice softening. Somehow they were now standing just inches apart. "I think of you." When their eyes met, Jason grinned and added, "With a penis. — Julie James

My stories are character driven. — Terry McMillan

I'd like to be taken in charge of as an actor, not to be abandoned with asinine dialogue and meaningless actions or stereotyped characters. I'd like to feel like I'm in a character driven story. — Xavier Dolan

Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final third, the resolution. — Michael Moorcock

The shows I've been working on, especially 'Parenthood' and 'Friday Night Lights,' I think are completely character-driven stories. I think, for most writers, that's a privilege to be telling those kinds of stories. It's erroneous to me. — Jason Katims

Behavior isn't driven by permanent traits that apply across the board. Rather, someone could be honest at work, but deceptive with his spouse. People don't have character, but rather a multiplicity of tendencies activated by context. — Joshua V. Scher

It's tough. We don't have a character-driven show so I think the fans get really frustrated because they don't get to see any consistency in terms of what's happening romantically. We kind of just have to take it with a grain of salt. It shows up where it shows up. — Eva LaRue

My characters' addictions are what makes them a bit stylized or "grotesque" - not just in appearance but through what drives them. Addiction is what threatens stability and normalcy and yet it seems very much a part of being human - at least we are all a bit obsessive and compulsive. Aren't all humans driven by mad desires for one thing or another? — Porochista Khakpour

I've always loved writing emotionally rich, character-driven novels that explore the way people fall in love and deal with life's triumphs and tragedies. I enjoy writing the contemporary and historical books equally, though perhaps 'enjoy' is the wrong word. — Susan Wiggs

In other characters, it's driven by insecurity, or it's driven by fear, or - there's always a driver. And all the physical manifestations, you need your way in. — Meryl Streep

It depends, because sometimes an action role can be very demanding, and sometimes a dialogue-driven character can be very demanding, and vice versa. It depends. — Benicio Del Toro

My favorite thing to do is action-driven, emotionally-charged scenes. If it's not just two people talking in a room, but it's on the move and things are happening and it's chaotic, and emotion comes from the characters and from the action, and the fall-out ultimately changes the character relationships, that exactly the kind of stuff I like writing. — Geoff Johns

People who are driven by their values will overcome hurdles, difficulties, and obstacles in ways that people driven only by profit will never be able to — Simon S. Tam

Alice Munro is a particular kind of short story writer in that she writes long, character-driven short stories. — Nell Freudenberger

Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy. — Jay Roach

My thing was always more character-driven comedies, not sketch comedy - not that there's not room for both or one isn't enjoyable, just my personal taste, I like movies that comedy comes from out of flaws of people, things that are uncomfortable, out of tragedy. — Vince Vaughn

The same strength of character which helps a man resist love, helps to make it more violent and lasting too. People of unsettled minds are always driven about with passions, but never absolutely filled with any. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

It's really hard to find just a simple character-driven drama, outside of a genre, that was available to direct, except for on TV. — Marc Webb

Man is weak. Purpose makes him strong. — Raheel Farooq

I pride myself on doing character-driven movies and, when my movies have worked, it's been because of the right casting and the right character, and it just clicks. — Doug Liman

Aubrey obviously plays Karen's, Sarah Michelle Gellar's, younger sister. And, um, she's sort of always been the underdog in the family and somebody who is not as ambitious or driven as her sister, as Karen's character, so she's sort of always felt like she's had to follow in her sister's footsteps. — Amber Tamblyn

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven. — Stephen King

Walt Disney was a great believer in the use of song to convey story. He was primarily a storyman & story-driven songs were his 'pets.' He always asked what was going on with the song - he hated 'singing heads.' He loved learning about character & motivation thru music & lyrics. — Richard Sherman

My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story. — Carl Hiaasen

Consider: for all the gobbledegook [film studio] executives spout about backstory, all that we, the audience, want to know is what happens next. That's the only thing that's going on ... Character is nothing other than action, and character-driven means The plot stinks, and you'd better hope the star is popular enough to open the movie in spite of it. — David Mamet

Has it ever occurred to you that Max feels the same basic contempt for you as you do for him?"
"He feels contempt for me?"
"It is something he feels very readily."
"No, I hadn't thought that."
"Well, the whole world isn't driven by your appetites, and people who are not feel themselves your superior, naturally. He struggles very hard to make allowances for you. He is not tolerant, but he is charitable. Or perhaps it is the other way around."
"One becomes tired of analyzing his character," Danton said. "As if one's life depended on it. — Hilary Mantel

Once a character has gelled it's an unmistakable sensation, like an engine starting up within one's body. From then onwards one is driven by this other person, seeing things through their eyes ... — Deborah Moggach

The instant that movies became described as character driven was the instant when characters stopped mattering in movies. In other words, the birth of the notion of the character-driven movie coincided with the birth of movies in which characters were incidental to the very activities in which they engaged. — Steve Erickson

I think so, Silence of the Lambs was a great, suspenseful thriller and I would expect Red Dragon to be similar. And I think it's very character driven. — Emily Watson

I like character-driven stuff. It doesn't matter, the size of the part. — Steve Buscemi

Any society, in order to survive, must mold the character of its members in such a way that they want to do what they have to do; their social function must become internalized and transformed into something they feel driven to do, rather than something they are obliged to do. — Erich Fromm

The multiverse model offers an elegantly postmodern solution to character stasis in a market-driven serial publishing system which privileges constancy over major change. — Jose Alaniz

The best of all kinds of movies are character-driven, and I definitely don't want to lose sight of why Derek and I started to write movies together in the first place. — Colin Trevorrow

The Telescope, the Fluxions, the invention of Logarithms and the frenzy of multiplication, often for its own sake, that follow'd have for Emerson all been steps of an unarguable approach to God, a growing clarity,- Gravity, the pulse of time, the finite speed of Light present themselves to him as aspect of God's character. It's like becoming friendly with an erratic, powerful, potentially dangerous member of the Aristocracy. He holds no quarrel with the Creator's sovereignty, but is repeatedly appall'd at the lapses in Attention, the flaws in Design, the squand'rings of life and energy, the failures to be reasonable, or to exercise common sense,- first appall'd, then angry. We are taught,- we believe,- that it is love of the Creation which drives the Philosopher in his Studies. Emerson is driven, rather, by a passionate Resentment. — Thomas Pynchon

I'm always attracted to lower budget, not because it's lower budget, but because they tend to be better scripts. It's the scripts that tend to be the small arthouse film that tend to be more actor-led and character driven. — Helena Bonham Carter

A lot of times I'll make films that are mostly character-driven films - stories that involve people. Like, I make the joke: I like to make movies about human beings that live on Earth. — Rob Reiner

On the one hand, you have these huge budget films that cost millions of dollars. They are effects driven, they don't have well known actors in them, and they are making money. Well, some of them are. One the other hand, you have Stallone and Statham, and guys like DeNiro and Pacino, and Costner, who are all trying to make movies about real people. They are interested in character driven projects. — Dolph Lundgren

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

Plays are literature: the word, the idea. Film is much more like the form in which we dream - in action and images (Television is furniture). I think a great play can only be a play. It fits the stage better than it fits the screen. Some stories insist on being film, can't be contained on stage. In the end, all writing serves to answer the same question: Why are we alive? And the form the question takes - play, film, novel - is dictated, I suppose, by whether its story is driven by character or place. — Israel Horovitz

I'd be more interested in doing a smaller, character driven thing, rather than another action picture. — Sigourney Weaver

literary fiction is fiction that examines the character of the people involved in the story, and that popular fiction is driven by plot. Whereas popular fiction, I tell them, is meant primarily as a means of escape, one way or another, from this present life, a kind of book equivalent of comfort food, literary fiction confronts us with who we are and makes us look deeply at the human condition. — Bret Lott

I really want to be associated with great projects and character driven projects and films. I have to feed my soul, and keep feeling like an artist and keep being challenged. — Nina Dobrev

Fiction writers come up with some interesting metaphors when speaking of plot. Some say the plot is the highway and the characters are the automobiles. Others talk about stories that are "plot-driven," as if the plot were neither the highway nor the automobile, but the chauffeur. Others seem to have plot phobia and say they never plot. Still others turn up their noses at the very notion, as if there's something artificial, fraudulent, contrived. — James N. Frey

I think USA has a great handle on programming and content. They know their viewers and they know what works ... Character driven programming! — Tim DeKay

I'm probably more character-driven than plot-driven. It's rare for me to attach myself to an idea for a story. — Steven Soderbergh

How I work is I work from of very character-driven place. And I trust the writers. — Amy Adams

Well, honestly, the films I personally like to go see are smaller, more character-driven pieces, so that's why the movies I've made have been smaller, more character-driven movies. — Edward Burns

I'll play a happy character, but most characters are driven by a pain or a fear. They are driven by something deep down, and most people are like that in the sense. And so, that's what interests me. — Emory Cohen

Encourage literally came from "in courage." The courage is put "into" you from outside. Our character and abilities grow through internalizing from others what we do not possess in ourselves. — Henry Cloud

I enjoy the writing process and producing; I enjoy seeing an idea come to fruition. I'm driven by very complex characters. You look at the pilot of 'Breaking Bad,' where there's so much depth to the character, you can't help but be invested when you watch. — Sasha Roiz

I read and write for character. If I like and can relate to the characters in a story I can enjoy any kind of story. I also want something with a definitive plot - you know, beginning, middle and end--that has forward motion. I don't like series books that leave you hanging after you've finished a book and in my own fiction I try to make sure that there's always an entry point for those who are new to the book as well as long-time readers. — Charles De Lint

driven, passionate, mercurial, irascible" [the character of Michelangelo] — Miles J. Unger

Amy Rapp, my producing partner, and I are drawn to character-driven material. We're developing and producing movies and TV, fiction and non-fiction, studio and independent, broadcast and cable, theatre, and web so our slate is really diverse. — Meredith Vieira

Character driven stories engage me and when an audience gets to know a character in an unforced way and finds themselves rooting for him or her, those are the kind of movies that get me excited. — Matthew Bonifacio

There are lots of authentic, moving characters in so-called systems novels, just as there are certainly deep structural ideas in some character-driven novels. — Dana Spiotta

My key interest in choosing scripts is character-driven stories, because there are so many stories that sacrifice character for plot. — Lasse Hallstrom

I don't write plot-driven stories. Plotting feels too contrived and constraining to me. I posit. I agitate. I present contradictions, and in that respect, I suppose I write belief-driven stories. The point A to point B happens when the main character questions a belief they have at the beginning only to realize at the end that they were wrong.

The wade through the mud is what interests me. — Cheryl Anne Gardner

Dramas for me are where it's at, but a great drama, a great character-driven drama, there's very few of them that get made; there's very few of them that actually make it to theaters. There's just very few of them. — Josh Stewart

I'm character-driven. If it's a great character and something different; because I find that a lot of the times you do get pigeon-holed, you do get the same characters over and over again because that's what producers are comfortable with. They've seen you do it, they know you can do it. I'm kind of getting a little stir crazy. — A. J. Cook

I'm pretty much a character-driven film director and my movies are smaller. I don't do a lot of coverage. I use lots of master shots. — Stanley Tucci

I like to do comedy, but I'll be perfectly honest, I prefer to do drama and more character-driven-based stuff, generally. — Matt Dillon

To me, it all comes down to things being character-driven. It's hard for me to look beyond that. CG and all this cool stuff - so be it. But to me, it pretty much begins and ends with character-driven plots rather than technologically-driven plots. — Billy West

We also have a piece about the Mayflower, but it's just a very different, very gritty, very character-driven version of why those people were on that boat and what the experience was like for them, emotionally, physically and spiritually, and also the Native Americans and what the state of Native American society was at that time. — John Landgraf

I'm a character-driven director, and I tend to fall in love with the characters in my movies and TV shows. — Doug Liman

Terrifying ... A Dark Matter is populated with vivid, sympathetic characters, and driven by terrors both human and supernatural. It's the kind of book that's impossible to put down once it has been picked up. It kept me reading far into the night. Straub builds otherworldly terror without ever losing touch with his attractive cast of youngsters, who age beautifully. Put this one high on your list. — Stephen King

The privilege, and the challenges, of taking on Black Widow have never been lost on me. I worked on the first 'Spiderman' game as well as 'Fantastic Four,' and I had always wanted to be able to tell more of a character-driven comic book story than was possible to fit into a game narrative. — Margaret Stohl

I've always been interested in character-driven pieces, and my approach to directing is through acting. — Steve Buscemi

'Save the Date' feels like a quiet story about two sisters and the men in their lives, kind of reminiscent of the quieter rom-coms of the 1990s; it's very character-driven and not as wedding-focused. — Lizzy Caplan

Interview on The Skiffy and Fanty Show 2010. In response to query that young adults may not be open to the nuances/realism in Moorehawke:

'(In fact)young adult readers seem to (be very inclined)to reading the (Moorehawke) books thematically. Some (not all) adult reviewers ... tend to be very plot oriented. Because the books are a slow release of information and very character driven ... (they) don't reward impatient reading ... but young adults seem to be very patient readers. They're very analytical as well. I get very analytical responses from my young adult readers. — Celine Kiernan

Short story characters, mine anyway, are usually driven by impulse, not so much by their histories and the choices that they have to make. — Charles Baxter

Characters are story. And any great plot or subplot is driven
by the characters' wants and desires. — Robert Gregory Browne

When it came to hiding, even Gwin had nothing to teach Dustfinger. A strange sense of curiosity had always driven him to explore the hidden, forgotten corners of this and any other place, and all that knowledge had now come in useful. — Cornelia Funke

Crime fiction makes money. It may be harder for writers to get published, but crime is doing better than most of what we like to call CanLit. It's elementary, plot-driven, character-rich story-telling at its best. — Linwood Barclay

Taken together the Internet reads like the grandest character-driven novel humanity has ever known. Not much plot though. — Victor LaValle

I love female-driven drama, and those kinds of characters. I really love complex women. — Anna Silk