“Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves — all plot and no characters, or made-up characters — Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.”

—  Wilfrid Sheed

"A Fun-House Mirror" (1972), pp. 107-108
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves — all plot and no characters, or made-up characters — Vietnam…" by Wilfrid Sheed?
Wilfrid Sheed photo
Wilfrid Sheed 50
English-American novelist and essayist 1930–2011

Related quotes

Napoleon I of France photo

“In war, character and opinion make more than half of the reality.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo

“Character is plot, plot is character.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter
Ambrose Bierce photo

“The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 360

Vanna Bonta photo

“The real plot in fiction parallels life in that it happens within the characters.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks About Quantum fiction: Author Interview (2007)

Diana Gabaldon photo

“Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author
Rex Stout photo

“There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions — is he tall, is he short?”

Rex Stout (1886–1975) American writer

he had better quit.
Rex Stout
The New York Times, "Talk with Rex Stout"

Vanessa Hua photo

“Characters, even though they’re minor, shouldn’t be a device. No person should be a device to move the plot along. That’s when you run into problems with stereotypes. I strive, in my journalism and my fiction, to make characters as complex and complicated as they are in real life…”

Vanessa Hua American journalist and writer

On how she writes characters in “Motherhood and Migration: An Interview with Vanessa Hua on ‘A River of Stars’” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/motherhood-and-migration-an-interview-with-vanessa-hua-on-a-river-of-stars/ in Los Angeles Review of Books (2018 Sep 13)

Edward Young photo

“The man that makes a character makes foes.”

Edward Young (1683–1765) English poet

To Mr. Pope, epistle I, l. 28 (1730).

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

As quoted in Nineteen Stars : a Study in Military Character and Leadership (1971) by Edgar F. Puryear Jr., p. 289
1960s
Context: Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity. When you delegate something to a subordinate, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility, and he must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what the subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of wisecrack, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

Related topics