Greg Heffley

"I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons."

——Greg Heffley

Gregory "Greg" Heffley is an American middle school student and protagonist of Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, who is believed to be loosely based on Jeff Kinney. He is an outcast who has, according to him, unreliable friends. He is very concerned about his popularity level and how he looks in public. He absolutely loves video games and slacking off, taking after his older brother Rodrick Heffley. He takes up a lot of traits from Rodrick (like selfishness, being a slacker, etc.) He also has an interest in cartooning and making comics. He is played by Zachary Gordon in all movies (2010-2012).

Personality

"So if you want to find somebody to blame for the way I am, I'd guess you'd have to start with the public education system."

—--Greg Heffley

Greg explains throughout the series that he has no strong talents, other than video games and comics. As such, he spends most of his time on them, which deters him away from schoolwork and chores. For a time, he harbored a hope of drawing for the school newspaper, but his comic was bowdlerized by the editor (Mr Ira) and Rowley’s comic, which was also Greg's idea, was better liked by the people at his school. He hardly shows any other talents. However, Greg is probably good at singing, due to the fact that when he was auditioning for the school play, the drama teacher told him he had a nice soprano voice, and is also good at sewing, but he complains that these talents do not make him stand out. 

Greg almost always tries to find a scapegoat to put the blame on for his behavior, but he is oblivious to the fact that nobody forced or influenced him, other than probably his older brother, Rodrick, to act in this manner. Very few times has Greg actually admitted to being "wrong" in a decision he made and took responsibility for it. It should also be noted that while Greg is arguably a watered down version of Rodrick, he does not have any productive interests and could actually be considered more hurtful than Rodrick psychologically.

Although he considered as a "Wimp"; he has a problematic behavior in many cases, and often he puts himself and his family into trouble. Typically he is looking to find a scapegoat so he to blame, and very few times admits being "wrong", but he also seems to feel caring for others and as such is willing to give of himself to people he loves, especially Rodrick. The parents of his best friend, Rowley, believe Greg is a bad influence on their son (mainly Rowley's dad) because he gets bad grades in school, do not invest in studies and rarely listen to his parents.

He wants to be famous when he grows up, and imagines it many times.

Appearance 

Greg is usually depicted with black shorts, or black pants (sometimes black jeans) and a white shirt. He is very skinny and does not seem to eat nor work out much. His father has tried to get him to work out and exercise, but he prefers playing video games. His nose is a simple oval while his ears are circled. He also appears to wear contact lenses, which he mentioned in The Third Wheel and The Last Straw, and  sometimes his backup glasses.

In the movie, he has brown hair and pale white skin. Like in the book, he's visually skinny and shorter than Rowley.

Trivia

• Greg is ironically older than Rowley, as his birthday takes place during the summer, while Rowley's takes place during the first semester of the school year.
• The online book is the only time Greg's age is clearly mentioned.
• It is possible that Greg has hyperthymesia- a condition that lets the individual to recall almost everything in their life, however, in previous books he is shown to have a bad memory. It is most likely that he is inventing memories and has simply been told by his parents about life before birth. He talks about his time in pre-school, but this is not unusual as most people's first memories occur age 1-2.
• Greg has gotten detention three times:
  • First for sleeping in class. (The Last Straw)
  • Second for vandalizing the school walls (though it isn't confirmed). (Cabin Fever)
  • Third for giving a fake elevator pass card to kids new to his middle school. (Third Wheel)
    • As Greg has had three detentions, he could not sign up as student president.
• Greg was only 5 pounds 7 ounces at birth, as he was born 3 weeks premature.
• Greg tends to be very optimistic and full of himself, believing that he will be rich and famous, and that by the age of 12-13, he would have his own reality TV show.
• Greg is in middle school he should be no older than 14.
• It is revealed in The Last Straw that Greg swears a lot, often swearing at school and even swearing in front of his three or four-year-old brother, Manny.
• In the second film when Greg finds out Manny put a cookie in his gaming console, you can see that it is an Xbox 360 Elite. In Dog Days, there are multiple times when you can see Greg playing a PlayStation Portable.
• Greg is rarely seen smiling.

Quotes

Books

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

• First of all, let me get something straight: this is a JOURNAL, not a diary. I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing I SPECIFICALLY told her to get one that didn't say "diary" on it.
• Great. All I need is for some jerk to catch me carrying this book around and get the wrong idea.
• The other thing I want to clear up right away is that this was MOM's idea, not mine.
• But if she thinks I'm going to write down my "feelings" in here or whatever, she's crazy.
• Just don't expect me to be all "Dear Diary" this and "Dear Diary" that.
• The only reason I agreed to do this at all is because I figure later on when I'm rich and famous, I'll have better things to do than answer people's stupid questions all day long. So this book is gonna come in handy.
• Here's my journal. Now shoo, shoo.
• I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons.
• Let me just say for the record, that I think middle school is the dumbest idea ever invented. You got kids like me who haven't hit their growth spurt yet mixed in with these gorillas who need to shave twice a day.
• And then they wonder why bullying is such a big problem in middle school.
• If it was up to me, grade levels would be based on height, not age. But then again, I guess that would mean kids like Chirag Gupta would still be in the first grade.
• Today is the first day of school, and right now we're just waiting around for the teacher to hurry up and finish the seating chart. So I figured out I might as well write in this book to pass the time.
• By the way, let me give you some good advice. On the first day of school, you got to be real careful where you sit. You walk into the classroom and just plunk your stuff down on any old desk and the next thing you know the teacher is saying "I hope you all like where you're sitting, because these are your permanent seats."
• So in this class, I got stuck with Chris Hosey in front of me and Lionel James in back of me.
• Jason Brill came in late and almost sat to my right, but luckily I stopped that from happening at the last second.
• Next period, I should sit in the middle of a bunch of hot girls as soon as I step in the room. But I guess if I do that, it just proves I didn't learn anything from last year.
• Man, I don't know WHAT is up with girls these days. It used to be a whole lot simpler back in elementary school. The deal was, if you were the fastest runner, you got all the girls.
• And in the fifth grade, the fastest runner is Ronnie McCoy.
• Nowadays, it's a whole lot more complicated. Not it's about what kind of clothes you wear or how rich you are or if you have a cute butt or whatever. And kids like Ronnie McCoy are scratching their heads wondering what the heck happened.
• The most popular boy in my grade is Bryce Anderson. The thing that really stinks is that I have ALWAYS been into girls, but kids like Bryce have only come around in the last couple of years.
• I remember how Bryce used to act back in elementary school.
• I don't think girls are stinky-poos!
• But of course now I don't get any credit for sticking with the girls all the time.
• Like I said, Bryce is the most popular kid in our grade, so that leaves all the rest of us guys scrambling for the other spots.
• The best I can figure is that I'm somewhere around 52nd or 53rd most popular this year. But the good news is that I'm about to move up one spot because Charlie Davies is above me, and he's getting his braces next week.
• I try to explain all this popularity stuff to my friend Rowley (who is probably hovering right around the 150 mark, by the way), but I think it just goes in one ear and out the other with him.
• Today we had Phys Ed, so the first thing I did when I got outside was sneak off to the basketball court to see if the Cheese was still there. And sure enough, it was.
• That piece of Cheese has been sitting on the blacktop since last Spring. I guess it must've dropped out of someone's sandwich or something. After a couple of days, the Cheese started getting all moldy and nasty. Nobody would play basketball on the court where the Cheese was, even though that was the only court that had a hoop with a net.
• Then one day, this kid named Darren Walsh touched the Cheese with his finger, and that's what started this thing called the Cheese Touch. It's basically like the Cooties. If you get the Cheese Touch, you're stuck with it until you pass it on to someone else.
• The only way to protect yourself from the Cheese Touch is to cross your fingers.
• But it's not that easy remembering to keep your fingers crossed every moment of the day. I ended up taping mine together so they'd stay crossed all the time. I got a D in handwriting, but it was totally worth it.
• This one kid named Abe Hall got the Cheese Touch in April, and nobody would even come near him for the rest of the year. This summer Abe moved away to California and took the Cheese Touch with him.
• I just hope someone doesn't start the Cheese Touch up again, because I don't need that kind of stress in my life anymore.
• I'm having a seriously hard time getting used to the fact that summer is over and I have to get out of bed every morning to go to school.
• My summer did not exactly get off to a great start, thanks to my older brother Rodrick.
• A couple of days into summer vacation, Rodrick woke me up in the middle of the night. He told me I slept through the whole summer, but that luckily I woke up just in time for the first day of school.
• You might think I was pretty dumb for falling for that one, but Rodrick was dressed in his school clothes and he set my alarm clock ahead to make it look like it was in the morning. Plus, he closed my curtains so I couldn't see that it was still dark out.
• After Rodrick woke me up, I just got dressed and went downstairs to make myself some breakfast, like I do every morning on a school day.
• But I guess I must have made a pretty big racket because the next thing I knew, Dad was downstairs, yelling at me for eating Cheerios at 3:00 in the morning.
• It took me a minute to figure out what the heck was going on.
• After I did, I told Dad that Rodrick had played a trick on me, and HE was the one that should be getting yelled at.
• Dad walked down to the basement to chew Rodrick out, and I tagged along. I couldn't wait to see Rodrick get what was coming to him.
• But Rodrick covered up his tracks pretty good. And to this day, I'm sure Dad thinks I've got a screw loose or something.
• Today at school we got assigned to reading groups.
• They don't come right out and tell you if you're in the Gifted group or the Easy group, but you can figure it out right away by looking at the covers of the books they hand out.
• I was pretty disapponted to find out I got put in the Gifted group, because that just means a lot of extra work.
• When they did the screening at the end of last year, I did my best to make sure I got put in the Easy group this year.
• Fred picked up the buh... bah... bee...
• Mom is real tight with our principal, so I'll bet she stepped in and made sure I got put in the Gifted group again.
• Mom is always saying I'm a smart kid, but that I just don't "apply" myself.
• But if there's one thing I learned from Rodrick, it's to set people's expectations real low so you end up surprising them by practically doing nothing at all.
• Actually, I'm kind of glad my plan to get put in the Easy group didn't work.
• I saw a couple of the "Bink Says Boo" kids holding their books upside down, and I don't think they were joking.
• Well, the first week of school is finally over, so today I slept in.
• Most kids wake up early on Saturday to watch cartoons or whatever, but not me. The only reason I get out of bed at all on weekends is because eventually, I can't stand the taste of my own breath anymore.
• Unfortunately, Dad wakes up at 6:00 in the morning no matter WHAT day of the week it is, and he is not real considerate of the fact that I am trying to enjoy my Saturday like a normal person.
• I didn't have anything to do today so I just headed up to Rowley's house.
• Rowley is technically my best friend, but that is definitely subject to change.
• I've been avoiding Rowley since the first day of school, when he did something that really annoyed me.
• We were getting our stuff from our lockers at the end of the day, and Rowley came up to me and said "Want to come over to my house and Plaayyy?"
• I have told Rowley at least a billion times that now that we're at middle school, you're supposed to say "hang out", not "play". But no matter how many noogies I give him, he always forgets the next time.
• I've been trying to be a lot move careful about my image ever since I got to middle school. But having Rowley around is definitely not helping.
• I met Rowley a few years ago when he moved into my neighborhood.
• His mom bought him this book called "How to Make Friends in New Places", and he came to my house trying all these dumb gimmicks.
• I guess I kind of felt sorry for Rowley, and I decided to take him under my wing.
• It's been great having him around, mostly because I get to use all the tricks Rodrick pulls on ME.
• Did you know that if your hand is bigger than your face it's a sign of low intelligence?
• Hmm... Let me check again.
• You know I said I play all sorts of pranks on Rowley? Well, I have a little brother named Manny, and I could NEVER get away with pulling any of that stuff on him.
• Mom and Dad protect Manny like he's a prince or something. And he never gets in trouble, even if he really deserves it.
• Yesterday, Manny drew a self-portrait on my bedroom door in permanent marker. I thought Mom and Dad were really going to let him have it, but as usual, I was wrong.
• Must be a mistake.
• Mom makes me help Manny get ready for school in the morning, After I make Manny his breakfast, he carries his cereal bowl into the family room and sits on his plastic potty.
• And when it's time for him to go to day care, he gets up and dumps whatever he didn't eat right in the toilet.
• Mom is always getting on me about not finishing my breakfast. But if she had to scrape corn flakes out of the bottom of a plastic potty every morning, she wouldn't have much of an appetite either.
• I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I am SUPER good at video games. I'll bet I could beat anyone in my grade head-to-head.
• I just dusted the dining room for the heck of it!
• Three! Three!
• Hmm... Let me see what I can do...
• Yeahhhh... Sorry. Can't help you with that.
• Wow! Look at the size of that flamethrower!
• I bet this part is gonna be funny.
• Whup! Ha Ha! I was right! It was funny.
• A cowboy.
• We're calling the cops!
• Well, I guess now that we're safe in our own house, you can't get us!
• Does this feel right?
• Muscles are gross!
• Fifteen more! Come on!
• I think you dropped an apple, "Bubby".
• No thanks... I'm not as good as you!
• Hey, look at me! I'm your dad! Darr darr darr.
• I'm the one who broke his hand!
• I'ts a raging infection caused by a splinter that was left untreated!
• Would you like to be the first one to sign my sympathy sheet?
• Actually, it's an embroidered bookbag.
• I guess this has been a learning experience for both of us!
• You know, Rowley can have Class Clown for all I care. But if he ever gets to big for his britches, I'll just remind him that he was the guy who ate the ______.

Rodrick Rules

• I guess Mom was pretty proud of herself for making me write in that journal last year, because now she went and bought me another one.
• But remember how I said if some jerk caught me carrying a book with "diary" on the cover they were gonna get the wrong idea? Well, that's exactly what happened today.
• Now that Rodrick knows that I have another journal, I'd better keep this one locked up. Rodrick got hold of my last journal but don't even get me started on THAT story.
• At my first swim meet a couple of years ago, Dad told me that when the umpire shot off the starter pistol, I was supposed to dive in and start swimming.
• But what he DIDN'T tell me was that the started gun only fired blanks.
• Kids whose last names start with the first few letters of the alphabet get called up most by the teacher, and that's why they end up being the smartest.
• Making Rodrick getting out of bed early is a pretty big blow to him, because Rodrick LOVES to sleep. One time last fall, Rodrick slept for thirty-six hours STRAIGHT.
• Every time Bill stuck his tongue out and flicked it up and down like a rock star, you could hear Mom ring in with her opinion.
• Anyway, when Rodrick gets First Prize tomorrow and passes Science, I just hope he realizes how lucky he is to have a brother like ME.

The Last Straw

• One thing I noticed right off the bat is that the people in my familly are doing a lousy job sticking to THEIR New Year's resolutions.
• I've heard some of the stories Mom and Dad read to Manny, and let me just say that the people who write these books really have a racket going.
• I just can't believe the people who write these ads can get away with lying like that. I thought about hiring a lawyer to sue those guys, but lawyers cost money and, like I said, the Cash Machine was a piece of garbage.
• I thought it was pretty ironic that Dad would be asking ME a favor, especially since he's the one who's shipping me off to military school tomorrow. So I was fine with letting him squirm.
• And I know it's really corny to finish with a happy ending, but it looks like I'm out of the paper anyway, so I guess this is the end.
• Raspberry Plastic Tickle Bear!

Dog Days

• For me, summer vacation is basically a three-month guilt trip.
• Just because the weather's nice, everyone expects you to be outside all day "frolicking" or whatever. And if you don't spend every second outdoors, people think there's something wrong with you. But the truth is, I've always been more of an indoor person.
• The way I like to to spend my summer vacation is in front of the TV, playing video games with the curtains closed and the lights turned off.
• Unfortunately, Mom's idea of the perfect summer vacation is different from mine.
• I guess some people would say that hating a comic is a pretty flimsy foundation for a relationship, but the truth is me and Dad hate lots of the same things.
• Me and Dad might not have one of those close father-son relationships, but that's fine with me. I've learned that there is such a thing as TOO close.
• I realized vacation was pretty over when Mom finished up with her photo album today. I flipped through it, and to be honest with you, I don't think it was a very accurate record of our pictures is the one who gets to tell the story.

The Ugly Truth

• It's been almost two and a half weeks since me and my ex-best friend, Rowley Jefferson, had our big fight. To be honest with you, I thought he would've come crawling back to me by now, but for some reason, that hasn't happened.
• I'm actually starting to get a little concerned, because school starts back up in a few days, and if we're gonna get this friendship back on track, something needs to happen quick. If me and Rowley really ARE through, that would stink, because the two of us had a pretty good thing going.
• It's only, like, three more blocks!
• Now that our friendship is history, I'm in the market for a new best friend. The problem is, I invested all my time in Rowley, and I don't have anyone to take his place.
• The two best options I have at this point are Christopher Brownfield and Tyson Sanders. But each of those guys has his own issues.
• I hung out with Christopher for the last few weeks of the summer, mostly he's a really excellent mosquito magnet. But Christopher is more of a summertime friend than a school-year friend.
• Tyson is nice enough, and we like the same video games. But he pulls his pants all the way down when he uses the urinal, and I don't know if I can ever get past that.
• The only kid my age who's not paired up with someone is Fregley, but I ruled him out as best friend material a long time ago.
• Anyway, I'm still keeping the door open a crack for Rowley, just in case. But if he wants to save this friendship, he'd better do something fast.
• Because the way things stand, he's not gonna come out looking very good in my autobiography.
• With my luck, though, I'll go on to be rich and famous and Rowley will STILL find a way to ride my coattails.
• The reason I don't see things changing between me and Rowley is because he's already found himself a replacement friend. Or to be more accurate, his PARENTS did.
• For the past few weeks Rowley's been hanging out with this teenager named Brian.
• Whenever I go by Rowley's house, he's out in his front yard throwing a football or a Frisbee with a guy who looks like he's in high school or college.
• Well, I did some poking around and found out that this Brian guy isn't just some normal kid from the neighborhood. He's part of a company called "Cool Brian", which is sort of like a big-brother-for-hire kind of thing.
• Mom said she thinks the Cool Brian thing is a cool idea because it gives kids a "role model" they can look up to. That makes me kind of mad because, the way I see it, I'M Rowley's role model.
• And now Rowley's parents are paying some guy to do what I've been doing all these years for FREE.

Relationships

See Greg's Relationships