character-development

We become the books we read.

Books... are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.

The world needs gigantic strong wills in front of which even the mountains will be crumbled.

What I want from you comrade, what the world wants from you, O dearest, are the neurons of steel, within which dwells a mind of the same material of which the thunderbolt is made.

Character is what the world needs - character that will empower the mind with such an unimaginable strength that one would meet death face to face and say __ome other time, pal!

Great relationships create great characters. Make them feel real. Alive. Tangible and unforgettable. Bad relationships kill them. Bury them. Make you wish they hadn't wasted your precious time.

We employ education and the convictions gained through the intermeshing of personal experiences and fresh ideas to establish the configuration of our being that in actuality was our mysterious potentiality from the very inception of our birth.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

Live your life in such a way that you'll be remembered for your kindness, compassion, fairness, character, benevolence, and a force for good who had much respect for life, in general.

He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women.

I'd write of people and places like I knew, and I'd make my characters talk everyday English; and I'd let the sun rise and set in the usual quiet way without much fuss over the fact. If I had to have villains at all, I'd give them a chance, Anne--I'd give them a chance. There are some terrible bad men the world, I suppose, but you'd have to go a long piece to find them...But most of us have got a little decency somewhere in us. Keep on writing, Anne.

The person you are (in total, at that moment in time) is what creates the story you're writing. It's infused in every piece of punctuation, in the plot, in the most minor character who crosses the page. It's all your voice.

Lowell__ best friend was the heroically moustached art director of a tobacco magazine that published in the same building where Lowell worked at plumbing. His name was Harry Balmer, and despite the evidence of his moustache he was nervous, compulsive, and wracked with small fears. He looked his best from across a wide room; the closer you got to him, the more he seemed to fall apart into a mass of twitches and gnawed finernails and the clearer it became that this big, smart-looking moustache was a kind of bush he was trying to hide behind.

CENTER-OF-THE-UNIVERSE, that was me entering the workplace. And I woke up one day soon after that, struggling at the bottom of a vast ocean. But I needed that. Humbling experiences are part of growing - they help shape us and mold our character. Welcome to life.

You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.

Meggie dropped to her knees, scrambling frantically to collect the miniature clothes before more damage was done them, then she began picking among the grass blades where she thought the pearls might have fallen. Her tears were blinding her, the grief in her heart new, for until now she had never owned anything worth grieving for.

But Froi looked around with wonder. As if he had never seen the world from up so high before.

Delicious days ahead for solitude and writing and, oh yes, the holiday meal with family. Live with my characters until term starts in 2012!