Books Quote by Alexander Chee

Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.

— Michael Morpurgo

If you over-plot your book you strangle your characters. Your characters have to have enough freedom and life to be able to surprise you.

— Alan Lightman

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

— W. E. B. Griffin

“The principle that characters do not want to change applies to more than just fiction.”

— Donald Miller

I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?'…

— Irvine Welsh

Novels usually evolve out of 'character.' Characters generate stories, and the shape of a novel is entirely imagined but should have an aesthetic coherence.

— Joyce Carol Oates

“By mastering character and plot, you give your book a fighting chance and without character and plot, no book can survive.”

— Craig Hart

When you're writing fiction, you're in every character 'cause you can't help it.

— Marcia Clark

I can inhabit any character in a way that is difficult to do successfully in a contemporary novel.

— Rose Tremain

Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may…

— Laurie Graham

We are all potentially characters in a novel--with the difference that characters in a novel really get to live their lives to the full.

— Georges Simenon

My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story,

— Carl Hiaasen