A Quote by Muriel Spark

Contradictions in human character are one of its most consistent notes.

Muriel Spark

Quote Topics

Character Consistent Contradictions Human Most Notes

Quote Author

Muriel Spark
Scottish - Novelist
February 1, 1918 - April 13, 2006

I'm definitely interested in exploring human contradictions. Contradictions are what make us human - it's what defines us as human beings. Contradictions are what make characters interesting, and I've been lucky to be presented with characters who have a lot of contradictions.

Edgar Ramirez

The whole gamut of good and evil is in every human being, certain notes, from stronger original quality or most frequent use, appearing to form the whole character; but they are only the tones most often heard. The whole scale is in every soul, and the notes most seldom heard will on rare occasions make themselves audible.

Fanny Kemble

As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional.

Hugo Weaving

The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions - none more so than the most capable.

Theodore Dreiser

No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

When you get up, the night and day is a contradiction. But you get up at 4 A.M. That first blush of blue is where the night and day are trying to find harmony with each other. Harmony is the notes that Mozart didn't give you, but somehow the contradiction of his notes suggest that. All contradictions of his notes suggest the harmony.

Shekhar Kapur

Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle.

James Baldwin

You can make an interesting character in a small portion of a movie, for a character that doesn't have that much on the page, if you just find the contradictions. That's something that I try to bring to my performances.

Joel Kinnaman

So what we have tried to do in our later buildings is to try to be completely consistent, as a painter is consistent or as a sculptor is consistent. Architecture also must be very consistent.

Minoru Yamasaki

It's really hard to make a good film; it's really, really hard. So, the director's very important, and a character that can be described with more than one or two adjectives, maybe with contradictions. Contradictions are always good because that's truthful.

Rachel Weisz

Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.

Paulo Coelho

Everything Brecht wrote—plays, dialogues, and poetry—was his attempt to clarify the inner contradictions not only of the capitalism and fascism of his times, but also of the communism that was always disappointing his deepest hopes. In a book that makes Brecht’s struggle to reveal these hidden contradictions its central theme, Glahn issues, by implication, a call to arms to today’s artists—who are faced with a world that seems to defy attempts to treat the global crisis with an art that is rarely more than notes on ‘local’ angst.

Richard Foreman

You get notes from two studios and a network instead of a studio and a network. Although we early on forced them all to do their notes together. I make them all talk to each other first. Because we went through the pains of getting notes from ABC and at the time it was Touchstone, that were opposite - and then CBS notes that were opposite again. So it was, you guys are going to have to work it out as to what is the most important note.

Edward Allen Bernero

One of the most consistent defining qualities of sentience is that we define it as human, as the thing that we possess that others do not.

Lisa Joy

When I create a character, I do it with the directors, and I take their notes and try to have my notes meet in a common ground. I don't create characters myself, and I don't really think that's my job. I'm not a prep person at all - plus, I'm just a lazy procrastinator.