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Character is the foundation stone upon which one must build to win respect. Just as no worthy building can be erected on a weak foundation, so no lasting reputation worthy of respect can be built on a weak character.
~ - R. C. Samsel
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Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
~ -Helen Keller

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"Keep them people, people, people, and don't let them get to be symbols. Remember the race is older than the economic system."
~ - Ernest Hemingway

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"The moment when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave him to it."
~ - Graham Greene

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"Of course, that wonderful thing, a character running away with you—which happens to everyone—that's happened to me, I'm afraid."
~ - E.M. Forster

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"I followed Caddy around and wrote down what she did."
~ - William Faulkner [when asked how he wrote The Sound and the Fury]

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"A writer begins by breathing life into his characters. But if you are very lucky, they breathe life into you."
~ - Caryl Phillips

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"It would be a great joke on the people in my book if I just left them high and dry, waiting for me. If they bully me and do what they choose I have them over a barrel. They can't move until I pick up a pencil. They are frozen, turned to ice standing one foot up and with the same smile they had yesterday when I stopped."
~ - John Steinbeck

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"I can't remember setting off on my travels without having some picture of a character to take with me; I mean, really as a companion."
~ - John le Carre

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"I can only tell you that if you see a character starting to breathe, you do not shut him up, you do not sit on him, and you do not ship him out. You stay with him."
~ - Martin Cruz Smith

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"Start simply with a character or anything that you can make come alive. When you have a character he will create his own situation and his situation will suggest some kind of resolution as you get into it."
~ - Flannery O'Connor

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"Work them until they breathe, or as Faulkner said, until 'they suddenly stand up and cast a shadow.'"
~ - Ulf Wolf