About Quote by Edmund White

There's something to be said for a likable character, but fiction has a way of upending our ordinary standards.

— Ben Dolnick

It seems to me that most characters, in anything, are flawed in some way, just like most people. You look for the good in…

— Aidan Gillen

How can we expect novelists to be moral, when their trade forces them to treat every end they meet as no more than an…

— Randall Jarrell

If the moral good of fiction stems mainly from a habit of mind it inculcates in the reader, styles are neither good nor bad,…

— Mary Gordon

Poorly written novels--no matter how pious and edifying the behavior of the characters--are not good in themselves and are therefore not really edifying.

— Flannery O'Connor

There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to…

— Edwin Percy Whipple

What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.

— Pat Barker

Many novels and modern publications are corrupters of morals or distorters of truth.

— Ezra Taft Benson

There are lots of great characters in fiction who viewers and readers have engaged with that behave badly. Great characters can be unfaithful. They…

— Jesse Armstrong

The truth is, everything ultimately comes down to the relationship between the reader and the writer and the characters. Does or does not a…

— Whitley Strieber

I find flawed characters much more interesting than perfect ones and enjoy the challenge of making readers root for them in spite of their…

— Emily Giffin

The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of…

— Harry Lloyd