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Can Protagonist think of a single film that interests him as much as the three-hundredth best book he ever read? -- David Markson
Dogma not only blinds its protagonist, but it muzzles all other opposition. -- Maajid Nawaz
We can't help identifying with the protagonist. It's coded in our movie-going DNA. -- Roger Ebert
There has to be a protagonist who has to overcome challenges, and there will be a race to finish. -- Ashwin Sanghi
The black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings. I realized that I didn't see many paintings with black people in them. -- Jean-Michel Basquiat
Quite often my narrator or protagonist may be a man, but I'm not sure he's the more interesting character, or if the more complex character isn't the woman. -- Ann Beattie
I couldn't imagine what Fox thought they were doing, contemplating such a jagged protagonist for a prime-time drama. I only knew that I wanted the role very much. -- Hugh Laurie
Religious power, which, as I have already said, frequently identifies itself with political power, has always been a protagonist of this bitter struggle, even when it seemingly was neutral. -- Salvatore Quasimodo
Because there is actually something very interesting in Goodfellas, how the style of the film changes as time goes by and based on the mental state of the protagonist. -- Alex Cox
Perfect heroines, like perfect heroes, aren't relatable, and if you can't put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, not only will they not inspire you, but the book will be pretty boring. -- Cassandra Clare
In most films - especially in regards to the protagonist - really from the get-go they set up some scenario that endears that character to the audience. Or imbues him with some nobility or heroism or something. -- Joaquin Phoenix
Five, Six, Seven, Nate!' opens on my 13-year-old protagonist packing up a duffel bag and bidding his Midwestern town goodbye, heading off to start rehearsals for his New York City debut in 'E.T.: The Musical.' -- Tim Federle
There's a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. 'The protagonist must be sympathetic!' they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, 'sympathetic.' I just know 'interesting.' -- Alexander Payne
The writer must be a participant in the scene... like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character. -- Hunter S. Thompson
A lot of crime fiction writing is also lazy. Personality is supposed to be shown by the protagonist's taste in music, or we're told that the hero looks like the young Cary Grant. Film is the medium these writers are looking for. -- Peter Temple
The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants. -- David Mamet
Your protagonist is your reader's portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you're creating. They don't have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering. -- Janet Fitch
Just as Josef K, the protagonist of Kafka's 'The Trial,' awoke one day to discover that he had become part of some unfathomable legal carnival, we, too are frequently waking to discover that the rules of the digital game have once again profoundly changed. -- Evgeny Morozov
It may sound very strange, but I love the freedom that writing a novel gives me. It is an unhindered experience. If I come after a bad day, I can decide that my protagonist will die on page 100 of my novel in a 350-page story. -- Ashwin Sanghi
Crime is a very hard genre to feminise. If you have a female protagonist she is going to be looking after her mum when she gets older; she is going to be worried about her brother and sister; she will be making a living while bringing up kids. -- Denise Mina
Think 'Game of Thrones.' In the old days, this sort of show might be considered bad writing. It doesn't really seem to be moving toward a crisis or climax, it has no true protagonist, and it's structured less like a TV show or a movie than a soap opera. -- Douglas Rushkoff
Black Swan' does what Hollywood movies have always done - it spends its energies on getting some surface things right while getting everything important wrong. Darren Aronofsky, the director, applies the same techniques and the same sensibility here as he did with 'The Wrestler,' only with a prettier protagonist. -- Robert Gottlieb
To become a villain, you had to have become disillusioned, and in order to become disillusioned you had to have been passionate about something you believed in that was shaken and ripped from your grasp as a protagonist in that stage of your life, leaving you disillusioned with God, if you will. -- Matthew Davis
The film 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,' based the book of the same name, has a line that enlightens and comforts me. The protagonist, who has lost all ability to move except one eye, discusses his role as a father. He notes, 'Even a fraction of a father is still a father.' -- Steve Gleason
With my earlier books, I got quite bored being with one protagonist all the way through. With the Alex Morrow books, I wanted to do something a bit more holistic, so there were lots of different points of view, and I wanted to look at aspects of crime that you don't tend to look at. -- Denise Mina
I started writing 'Leaves Of Grass' when my professional life was falling apart somewhat. I just had a movie implode in pre-production. And so I came back licking my wounds to New York, where I live, and started to write a script about a protagonist for whom the exact same thing happened: His life was falling apart. -- Tim Blake Nelson
One of the bibles of my youth was 'Birds of the West Indies,' by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, 'My God, that's the dullest name I've ever heard,' so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one. -- Ian Fleming
You look like a protagonist. -- Rainbow Rowell
People always want to identify a writer with their protagonist. -- Monica Ali
People seem to need a likable protagonist more than ever. -- Daniel Clowes
I'm a sucker for a screwed-up protagonist. We all have issues. -- Chelsea Cain
The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature. -- Tayari Jones
As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want something. -- David Mamet
It is the objective of the protagonist that keeps us in our seats. -- David Mamet
I always think once you have the lead protagonist, you cast around that character. -- Nicolas Winding Refn
I'm drawn particularly to stories that evolve out of the character of the protagonist. -- David McCullough
Nobody is ever just a straight up protagonist or antagonist - everybody's morally ambiguous. -- Cheyenne Jackson
I'd been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parents' tragedy -- Alison Bechdel
I think in any movie really the two most interesting parts are the protagonist and the antagonist. -- Cung Le
I always find something in common with my protagonist, particularly when I write in the first person. -- Emily Giffin
Thus the protagonist of this Dream of mine is ooze, here and forever call'd Oozymandias the King." -- William T. Vollmann
Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist. -- David Mamet
I always felt a little worm inside me: 'Now you need to write a novel with a woman protagonist. -- Carlos Fuentes
Better to be the architect of something you can endorse than the placard waving protagonist standing in the rain. -- Mr. Wrestling
I absolute adore epic journeys that require a protagonist to fight for every victory in the hopes of finding triumph. -- Megan Chance
You don't really understand an antagonist until you understand why he's a protagonist in his own version of the world. -- John Rogers
The great movie can be as free of being a record of the progress of the protagonist as is a dream. -- David Mamet
My female protagonist will not be this promiscuous, beautiful, dark-haired, thin lady. It will be a plump, blond, healer and so forth. -- Isabel Allende
I think boys don't always like to read books with female protagonist - I don't even know what to say about this. -- Jacqueline Woodson
I think that ultimately any effective drama or tragedy tries to put you as much as it can into the protagonist's shoes. -- Nicholas Jarecki
By the time you have your protagonist attempting to assassinate the Pope, you've sort of signaled that everything is on the table. -- Brian K. Vaughan
The nature of the universe probably depends heavily on who is the actual protagonist. Lately I've been suspecting it's one of my cats. -- Wil McCarthy
When the machine of a human being is turned on, it seems to produce a protagonist, just as a television produces an image. -- Mohsin Hamid
The novel form is about the protagonist's struggle to transform his arbitrary, fragmented, given experience into a narrative as meaningful as his favorite books. -- Elif Batuman
I learned another thing, which is that just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story. -- Miriam Toews
For me, a great story is one in which the protagonist faces unimaginable odds; where the stakes are high that failure constitutes a disaster. -- Michael Boatman
We 'chicks' have munched our popcorn while romantic comedies became just comedies, and then each female protagonist got recast for Matthew McConaughey or Seth Rogan. -- Emma McLaughlin
Henry Miller wrote novels, but he calls his protagonist Henry, often Henry Miller, and his books are in this gray area between memoir and novel. -- Leslie Fiedler
The depth of any story is proportionate to the protagonist's commitment to their goal, the complexity of the problem, and the grace of the solution. -- Steve House
We "chicks" have munched our popcorn while romantic comedies became just comedies, and then each female protagonist got recast for Mathew McConaughey or Seth Rogan. -- Emma McLaughlin
Any claim to actual identification as a drama must rest upon the construction of a plot independent of the assignment of affliction to the protagonist. -- David Mamet
I've always wanted to play a soldier and I'd never taken on a character where I'm the happy-go-lucky protagonist. I've played a lot of jerks recently. -- Jesse McCartney
Though the inspiration for my songs almost always comes from things that are happening around me, I am definitely not always the protagonist in the songs. -- Thalia Zedek
We've all seen lots of stories about a young protagonist having adventures, and usually they're all boys, [and] there is sometimes a token female, or two. -- Brian K. Vaughan
The more complex and overwhelming the threat to a protagonist, the better the opportunity for the author to create a compelling conflict and a dramatic resolution. -- Terry Brooks
I think for some reason we're conditioned in movies that the protagonist must be heroic or redeemable in some way, whereas in theater, that's not a necessary. -- Oscar Isaac
A biography is never a biography of one person, of course, but the individual life of your protagonist will never conform. It will always bang up against history. -- Rachel Holmes
My writing is a very authentic journey of discovery. I'm going out there to learn who I am. My readers, consequently, take the same journey as my protagonist. -- Ted Dekker
The beauty of fantasy is that it allows the protagonist to pass through fear to come to know this different reality and to find a place in it. -- Kate Milford
Open Secret boasts a nifty plot and, in Coroner Fortin, a fascinating protagonist who will likely be around for a long time. Deryn Collier is a talent to watch, -- Giles Blunt
The protagonist of folktale is always, and intensely, a young person moving through ordeals into adult life. . . . and this is why there are no wicked stepchildren in the tales. -- Jill Paton Walsh
Wolf Boy is absolutely beguiling. Evan Kuhlman has boundless empathy for all his characters, and his wonderful protagonist Stephen is, in turn, boundlessly inventive. . . . This is an auspicious debut. -- Valerie Sayers
Everyone talks to their dog, and then in your mind the dog talks back. A talking dog can provide the words that a stunted protagonist finds difficult to muster. -- Mike Mills
Treefingers is important, it's the point in which our protagonist crosses the icy tundra that is how to disappear completely to reach the island of Optimistic. But seriously, kill yourself. -- Thom Yorke
This dazzling, unput-downable debut novel proves beyond a doubt that Dan Wells has the gift. His teenage protagonist is as chilling as he is endearing. More John Wayne Cleaver, please. -- F. Paul Wilson
I don't judge in my books. I don't have to have the antagonist get shot or the protagonist win. It's just how it comes out. I'm just telling a story. -- Elmore Leonard
When one hears the argument that marriage should be indissoluble for the sake of children, one cannot help wondering whether the protagonist is really such a firm friend of childhood. -- Suzanne La Follette
As such, anything is always possible, even if your protagonist is a plumber. But it's the possibility, the limitless possibilities, of any fake life, that make writing about it so challenging. -- Heidi Julavits
In the average European oil painting of the nude the principal protagonist is never painted. He is the spectator in front of the picture and he is presumed to be a man. -- John Berger
I'm a filmmaker, and I was most influenced by Hitchcock's films. How he could plant such deep enriched characters and then make us care both about the antagonist and protagonist was masterful. -- Paul Haggis
Terry Farish seems to breathe the reader into the emotional spaces of war, exile, and refugee life. The Good Braider is a delicate stunning exploration of its young protagonist's life and heart. -- Uma Krishnaswami
PRIMAL TEARS is a novel of tremendous power. Passionate and erotic, at times tenderly lyrical, it confronts head-on, without flinching, brutal environmental and feminist politics. Its protagonist, Sage, is unique, magical, and haunting. -- Kate Wilhelm
With me it started as a child, going to the theater and being totally transported but also walking out of the theater thinking I was the protagonist in the film and reenacting the scenes. -- Oscar Torre
Like my fictional protagonist Tom Thorne, I love country. My tastes go back a bit further than his do, and I still listen to stuff from the late '70s and early '80s. -- Mark Billingham
American and Vietnamese characters alike leap to life through the voice and eyes of a tenyearold girl-a protagonist so strong, loving, and vivid I longed to hand her a wedge of freshly cut papaya. -- Mitali Perkins
I tend to work on the principle that much humour relies on cognitive dissonance - on the foreground not matching the background, on the protagonist's response to a situation being inappropriate, and so on. -- Charles Stross
I hate the whole Ã¼bermensch, superman temptation that pervades science fiction. I believe no protagonist should be so competent, so awe-inspiring, that a committee of 20 really hard-working, intelligent people couldn't do the same thing. -- David Brin

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