Carolyn Chute Quotes

I feel my job as an actor is to explore all sides of humanity.

There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there.

It's the only way I really know how to tell the story is to be able to kind of live through the characters. So when I find something that resonates with me, it's usually because it cuts to something very real inside of me; something that I've gone through or experienced.

I always look at films as real stories with real people in real situations. That's why I struggle with the whole notion of calling someone the 'good guy' or the 'bad guy', because I think we all have potential to do good things and all have the potential to do bad things.

We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.

In the best works of fiction, there's no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy's got his reasons.

People write memoirs because they lack the imagination to make things up.

Mostly I'm writing about people, so I feel constrained to take with me my view of people, my curiosity about how people choose the things they do and why they come to certain decisions in a certain fashion and all the things that drive most writers.

It's amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.

So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.

I write because I have always been curious about what it would feel like to be someone else, in a different situation. Fiction is a wonderful way of exploring that.

People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become.

I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.

When I don't know what to do with a character, that's when I say yes to it. When it's far away from the way I am, the way I feel or the way I think, that's when it's more attractive.

People say there's a book in everyone but I'm not sure there is. There might be a pamphlet in me.

I'm insatiably curious about human nature. I feel very lucky that as a writer I get to learn so much about it just to do my job right.

I'm constantly surprised by human nature and humanity. And I think that's why I love what I do: because I love to story-tell and bring new characters to life.

I'm more comfortable writing traditional protagonists. But 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Social Network' have antiheroes. I like to write antiheroes as if they're making their case to God about why they should be allowed into heaven. I have to find something in that character that is like me and write to that.

I think it's normal that for a part of your life you have a lot of questions, and you're interested in all possible theories.

I have a huge note on my phone where things just start popping up. It doesn't make that much sense to me at the time, but once a song is finished, I can read into it and figure out who the characters are in my life.

I write books because I have always been fascinated by stories and language, and because I love thinking about what makes people tick. Writing a story... 'The Giver' or any other... is simply an exploration of the nature of behavior: why people do what they do, how it affects others, how we change and grow, and what decisions we make along the way.

I mean, can I really create a full, three-dimensional character? I don't know anymore. I'm certainly going to try.

I think there are parts of myself in every character I play.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

There are movies where we are interested in seeing people's lives without agreeing with what they're doing.