Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)
- Edward Abbey
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
- Mark Twain
Comedy, drama, Westerns, sci-fi... it's all fine if the story's compelling and the character is interesting to me. I do like action a lot.
- Jensen Ackles
Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.
- Edward Albee
She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, 'truth, reverence, and good will,' then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great.
- Louisa May Alcott
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.
- Ernest Hemingway
A noble and God-like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with God-like thoughts.
- James Allen
My character is self-important, poorly informed, well-intentioned but an idiot,... So we said, Let's give him a promotion.
- Stephen Colbert
Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
- Heraclitus
Character is destiny
- Heraclitus
A man's character is his fate.
- Heraclitus
A man's character is his guardian divinity.
- Heraclitus
The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.
- Heraclitus
Character is destiny.
- Heraclitus
The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.
- Maya Angelou
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
- Maya Angelou
The test of character is having the ability to meet challenges.
- Walter Annenberg
Character is simply habit long continued.
- Plato
Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
- Quintus Tullius Cicero
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
- Thomas B Macaulay
All in all, Kirk's character is something I am very proud of.
- William Shatner
Character is the line in the sand between the worst of the good people and the best of the bad ones
- Johnny Flora
And what's interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.
- Rowan Atkinson
He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth, "which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.
- Jane Austen
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
- Thomas Babington Macaulay
Character is power.
- Booker T Washington
Character is power.
- Booker T Washington
Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Making cartoons means very hard work at every step of the way, but creating a successful cartoon character is the hardest work of all.
- Joseph Barbera
Character is better than ancestry, and personal conduct is of more importance than the highest.
- Thomas John Barnardo
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
A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.
Albert Camus - As quoted in Albert Camus : The Invincible Summer (1958) by Albert Maquet, p. 86; a remark made about the Marquis de Sade.
- Albert Camus
I am an American, Chicago born Chicago, that somber city and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.
- Saul Bellow
The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room; only one activity: clearing away...
The destructive character is young and cheerful. For destroying rejuvenates in clearing away traces of our own age..
- Walter Benjamin
I think the qualities I look for in a girl I'd like to be my girlfriend would be the way Lindsay's character is before she becomes a plastic. Very real.
- Jonathan Bennett
You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.
- Julie Benz
Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, for your character is what you are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
- Dale Carnegie
I never thought I could write this much and now that it's coming to an end, I feel sad that I have to stop, sort of the way you feel at the end of a really good book and you know you're going to miss the main character. But in this case, the main character is me! Myself. Joe (formerly JoDan) Bunch. Joe Bunch
- James Howe
And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground.
- Lara Flynn Boyle
Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him.
- Omar N Bradley
To me, the psychology behind the character is critical. So I work very hard to get into the mind of the man that I'm going to be playing, because number one, I want to understand why he's doing what he's doing. It's essential, it's absolutely essential.
- Andre Braugher
There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn't. I failed myself.
- Libba Bray
I think Bond the character is distinct: He's British, he has a certain code that he lives by, he's incorruptible... he's a classical hero, but he's also fallible. He has inner demons, inner conflicts, and he's a romantic.
- Barbara Broccoli
I probably wouldn't make a good accountant. I don't even understand what my accountant tells me. But the character is a sort of exaggerated version of me, he's a little more frightened than I am, everything seems so much bigger to him than it does to me.
- Matthew Broderick
Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.
- H Jackson Brown Jr
Obviously you have to have talent in order to play so you can't overlook that, but we won't overlook the character issue when it comes to talent because if they have talent and they don't have character, it's going to be very difficult to coach that person.
- Tim Buckley
The most boring scenes are the scenes where a character is alone.
- Chuck Palahniuk
Then there's going to be another project I am involved with, in fact, I'm going back to film it next week. It's a game for the Internet called Advance Warriors, and my character is Max, who is blind, but he has special powers. It will be a new game played on the Internet.
- Jeremy Bulloch
The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.
- Abigail Van Buren
Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
It's about avoiding reality through various escape routes that become addictions and lead to Hell. My character is addicted to television, chocolate, coffee, to her dream of her son, which has no basis in reality.
- Ellen Burstyn
Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.
- Gabriel Byrne
Writing a teen character is something I wanted to try again for a long time!
- Emily Giffin
Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing
- Voltaire
To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.
- Michael Caine
I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically.
A strong male character isn't interesting because it has been done and it's so cliched. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn't done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn't been done all that much, finding the balance of femininity and strength.
[From a 1986 Fangoria interview]
- James Cameron
A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.
- Orson Scott Card
Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.
- Giacomo Casanova
The only way I can be there and really get into the character is if I'm her.
- Lacey Chabert
Character is that which can do without success.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow.... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with?... Suicide is more respectable.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no telling what a human character is. Until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way --- whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of.
- Agatha Christie
A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Yeah, it is, because it's a real discovery of your inner resources, you know. That's what my character is all about and what my playing is all about. But to get up there and just go inside and draw out something that makes you feel good first and foremost.
- Eric Clapton
I don't theorize too much. I sort of let the experience sink in, and I have to discover what the character is by doing it, and having those thoughts that she's thinking.
- Jill Clayburgh
Character is a journey, not a destination.
- William J Clinton
The idea that every time you do a film you're supposed to be tortured confuses me. I mean, guys who say, 'Oh, it's really tough, my character is really suffering' -come on. For us, even in the rotten ones we've had a good time. I don't think you have to suffer.
- George Clooney
I guess there's a certain amount of poking fun at certain characters, but that's because there is something amusing about them or about the way they behave, so I guess you can say that that's poking fun at the character. But the character is your own invention, so who cares?
- Joel Coen
Character is more important than talent.
- Edwin Louis Cole
The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.
- Cyril Connolly
All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.
- James F Cooper
The head writer loves that my character is a boor.
- Rob Corddry
Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested And have the courage to accept that you're not perfect nothing is and no one is and that's OK.
- Katie Couric
Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.
- Jim Rohn
Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.
- Stephen Covey
No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character is a child.
- Charlotte Saunders Cushman
My character is meant to know nothing about rap, and not to like it very much, but I know about it, because my kids make me listen to it. There's some rap I do like very much. I like Eminem, Blackalicious.
- Harrison Ford
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
- Kurt Vonnegut
We all have an ongoing narrative inside our heads, the narrative that is spoken aloud if a friend asks a question. That narrative feels deeply natural to me. We also hang on to scraps of dialogue. Our memories don't usually serve us up whole scenes complete with dialogue. So I suppose I'm saying that I like to work from what a character is likely to remember, from a more interior place.
- Lydia Davis
One's character is set at an early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.
- Wendelin Van Draanen
Strength of character may be learned at work, but beauty of character is learned at home.
- Henry Drummond
To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.
- Michel De Montaigne
Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test... You will be tested by major changes, delayed promises, impossible problems, unanswered prayers, undeserved criticism, and even senseless tragedies.
- Rick Warren
It's a strange thing, but you get this click in your brain; the wonderful feeling that the entirety of a character is suddenly available and accessible to you.
- Chiwetel Ejiofor
Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.
- George Eliot
Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.
- Evan Esar
What I do when I create a character is put in details from all the people I know who might be like that person, and then put in a huge amount of myself.
- Jeffrey Eugenides
I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey for both.
- Ralph Fiennes
The strongest should come first in comedy because once a character is really established as funny everything he does is funny.
- F Scott Fitzgerald
Character is plot, plot is character.
- F Scott Fitzgerald
In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.
- Alan Dean Foster
Your reputation is what you're perceived to be,
Your character is what you really are
- John Wooden
The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching.
- John Wooden
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
- John Wooden
Having shot Stilt Man in the taint with a bazooka -- I've come to realize every character is somebodys favorite character.
- Matt Fraction
And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.
- Anna Friel
From slavery to segregation, we remember that America did not always live up to its ideals. In fact, we often fell far short of them. But we also learned that fundamental to our national character is the drive to live out the true meaning of our creed.
- Bill Frist
Character is destiny and character is important to American campaigns.
- Mark Shields
The character is close to me, except that I haven't lived through those situations, so it's not completely me.
- Charlotte Gainsbourg
Someone once said anyone can be great under rosy circumstances, but the true test of character is measured by how well a person makes decisions during difficult times.
- Jack Gantos
A woman can't do anything about her appearance. Either she's pretty or she isn't. But her character is quite another matter.
- Julie Garwood
No matter what the character is, I just say to myself 'If I, Melissa George, was in that situation, how would I react?' and once you do that you can just go for it, and hopefully the performance comes through.
- Melissa George
Character isn't what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn't a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context.
- Malcolm Gladwell
It's nice to play a character that has a soulful, dependent, close relationship. It must mean my character is interesting in some way.
- Jeff Goldblum
I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.
- Terry Goodkind
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
- Abraham Lincoln
I try to play characters who are different from myself, so I feel like this character is someone who is really different. I actually think that if I did what he did in this movie, I would get a restraining order put against me.
- Ryan Gosling
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
- Billy Graham
Character is fate.
- Sylvia Plath
I can't deceive myself that out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide.
- Sylvia Plath
People think being remembered most for one character is a negative thing, but I don't. I never expected to be remembered for anything!
- Mark Hamill
The power of faith will often shine forth the most when the character is naturally weak.
- Augustus Hare
I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.
- Salma Hayek
It's difficult to write a book where a character is on virtually every page of the book but you cannot refer to his or her gender. It gets rid of every his, her, she and he.
- William Least Heatmoon
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
- Christopher Hitchens
The German people in its whole character is not warlike, but rather soldierly, that is, while they do not want war, they are not frightened by the thoughts of it.
- Adolf Hitler
A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.
- Richard Hofstadter
The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.
- John Holt
Every role you play is literally - and I've said this before - every single role that you play, the only way you can connect to that character is because that was a piece of you that was scattered around that yard, almost like we got caught up in some whirlwind.
- Terrence Howard
Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.
- John Howe
Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
- Elbert Hubbard
Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
- David Hume
The more I think about myself, the more I'm persuaded that, as a person, I really don't exist. That is one of the reasons why I can't believe in any orthodox religion: I cannot believe in my own soul. No, I am a chemical compound, conditioned by environment and education. My "character" is simply a repertoire of acquired tricks, my conversation a repertoire of adaptations and echoes, my "feelings" are dictated by purely physical, external stimuli.
- Christopher Isherwood
Actors will never be replaced. The thought that somehow a computer version of a character is going to be something people prefer to look at is a ludicrous idea.
- Peter Jackson
One of the things I noticed more in this draft than in any recent drafts was the importance of the character issue. Players who had baggage, like Justice, fell much farther than his talent dictated. But a lot of coaches didn't want to take the chance.
- Ron Jaworski
Character is supreme in life, hence Jesus stood supreme in the supreme thing - so supreme that, when we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code but a character.
- E Stanley Jones
Character is doing what you don't want to do but know you should do.
- Joyce Meyer
True character is revealedby the way people react to the bigger challenges in life.
- Alyson Noel
An ignorant person with a bad character is like an unarmed robber, but a learned person with a blog is a robber fully armed.
- Mickey Kaus
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.
[from "The Circus Animals' Desertion"]
- W B Yeats
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
- Alexander Pope
The trick is to try and justify every word on the page and make sure my character is the man who would say that.
- Ben Kingsley
The tragic element of a character is always intriguing I think.
- Greg Kinnear
The way I approach the character isn't about being gay or straight. It's just about who you love. Gender has very little to do with it.
- Mia Kirshner
People don't change, they just have momentary steps outside of their true character, isolated actions contrary to their true nature.
- Chad Kultgen
My character is somebody who is smaller in stature and yet who's strong, so to see the fighting situations between people who are not generally thought of being strong is in itself unusual and therefore interesting, I think.
- Chiaki Kuriyama
We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability...We do not wish to be crudely manipulated...We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater.
- Anne Lamott
Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.
- Thomas Paine
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
- Thomas Paine
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
- Thomas Paine
That's sort of what I like about this character is that he's not the good guy, he's not truly the bad guy.
- Nicholas Lea
In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed.
- Gail Carson Levine
Character is character and voice is voice, which translates nicely from writing novels to writing TV. But the process is different. You have a writer's room, people pitch you jokes and you collaborate.
- Jennifer Weiner
So, it's cool that, yes, Hal Jordan is a superhero, but my character is a real-world hero in her own life.
- Blake Lively
A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
- Charles Spurgeon
His character is like an emeraldmultifaceted and enhanced by inclusions.
- Melika Dannese Lux
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
- Thomas Macaulay
There's always a concern as an actor that you'll be boring unless your character is swinging from a chandelier.
- Matthew Macfadyen
I'm a firm believer that character is highly overrated. Character is a trick that we do with the audience's collusion.
- William H Macy
Being a new character is like going to a new school. You have to try to maintain your own autonomy and your own personality.
- Mia Maestro
As Danton sees it, the most bizarre aspect of Camille's character is his desire to scribble over every blank surface; he sees a guileless piece of paper, virgin and harmless, and persecutes it till it is black with words, and then besmirches its sister, and so on, through the quire.
- Hilary Mantel
Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.
- Orison Swett Marden
I describe my plots as follows; A character is walking down the street when all of a sudden a piano falls on them. They spend the rest of the story digging out from under that piano. How they dig, how long and how well, this all depends entirely on the character.
- Sarah Zettel
Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.
- John C Maxwell
I love those preliminary conversations about who a character is. You try on wigs, shoes and clothes. It's preferable when it's not about looking pretty. It can get a little dull to just be cute. We talk about things like, maybe my character can't afford these Christian Louboutins.
- Rachel Mcadams
Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.
- Mignon Mclaughlin
What gives it its human character is that the individual through language addresses himself in the role of the others in the group and thus becomes aware of them in his own conduct.
- George Herbert Mead
Most of the time when I receive a script, it says something like 'Rosenberg is the fat, slovenly Mayor, who doesn't want the kids to use the skateboard park', or 'Stein is a pompous, rotund attorney, imposing to all.' It would be so freeing to get a script where my character is simply described as 'A Man'.
- Fred Melamed
My character is not flawless.
- Breckin Meyer
All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will,and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is their nature to live fir others;to make complete abnegation of themselves,and to have no life but in their affections.
- John Stuart Mill
A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.
- Arthur Miller
I made a decision not to work out because I'm lazy and also, the character is not a superhero. I didn't want him to be a buff guy with Jackie Chan moves because the point is he's smarter than your average Joe.
- Wentworth Miller
Of all the principles I'd learn about story, the idea that a character is what he does remains the hardest to actually live.
- Donald Miller
The Southern character is opposed to haste. Safety is of more worth than speed, and there is no hurry.
- Maria Mitchell
Character is what you are in the dark.
- Dwight L Moody
Character is what a man is in the dark.
- Dwight L Moody
A man's character is like his house. If he tears boards off his house and burns them to keep himself warm and comfortable, his house soon becomes a ruin. If he tells lies to be able to do the things he shouldn't do but wants to, his character will soon become a ruin. A man with a ruined character is a shame on the face of the earth.
- Ralph Moody
No matter what name we give it or how we judge it, a candidate's character is central to political reporting because it is central to a citizen's decision in voting.
- Roger Mudd
People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.
- Iris Murdoch
A character is a completely fashioned will.
- Novalis
If you carry the weather with you, then character is determined by the prevailing wind
- Jamie O Neill
Character is one of most precious parts of you. You can't get involved in things that will damage your character.
- Rod Paige
The world is full of novels in which characters simply say and do. There are certainly legitimate genres in which this is sufficient. But in real and lasting writing the character is.
- Ruth Park
Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.
- Charles Henry Parkhurst
You can't just trust to luck; you have to really listen to what that character is telling you.
- Estelle Parsons
I feel I do my best work when it's all there on the page, and I feel that the character is very vivid as I read the script and I'm not having to create stuff and trying to cobble together something. If I have to do that, then I don't entirely trust what I'm doing.
- Guy Pearce
the depth of a person's character is not measured by his or her physical strength, but by the depth of his or her nobility.
- Frank Peretti
But at the same time, the commonplace statement about them is true: every character is the hero of his own story. Each has a justification for his actions that is convincing to him. It's fun to give these people voices.
- Thomas Perry
A good character is something you must make for yourself. It cannot be inherited from parents. It cannot be created by having extraordinary advantages. It isn't a gift of birth, wealth, talent or station. It is the result of your own endeavor. It is the reward that comes from living good principles and manifesting a virtuous and honorable life.
- L Tom Perry
Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.
- Joaquin Phoenix
Character is long-standing habit.
- Plutarch
Character is simply habit long continued.
- Plutarch
The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.
- Quintilian
My preparation is mainly just knowing the lines and getting in and knowing where your character is, knowing what it's about and having ideas that you can put in on the day.
- Daniel Radcliffe
To have character is to be big enough to take life on.
- Mary Richards
I don't think my spirituality has affected my character. I feel like my character is much more cynical about his beliefs, and I think I have to kind of drop what I believe in order to play him.
- Jason Ritter
Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
- Cavett Robert
However dark and profitless, however painful and weary, existence may have become, life is not done, and our Christian character is not won, so long as God has anything left for us to suffer, or anything left for us to do.
- Frederick William Robertson
Here in New England, the character is strong and unshakable.
- Norman Rockwell
American society not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
- Philip Roth
Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.
- Marquis De Sade
So they've actually - it's not that her character is a singer, but she had ambition to do that at an earlier time in her life. So I've actually sung two or three times now on the show.
- Katey Sagal
The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.
- Esapekka Salonen
Because in fantasy perhaps more than in any other genre, the character is rewarded for making the right choices and punished for making the bad.
Ask Boromir.
- R A Salvatore
Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.
- George Santayana
Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.
- George Saunders
The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.
- Karl Friedrich Schlegel
- Edward Abbey
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
- Mark Twain
Comedy, drama, Westerns, sci-fi... it's all fine if the story's compelling and the character is interesting to me. I do like action a lot.
- Jensen Ackles
Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.
- Edward Albee
She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, 'truth, reverence, and good will,' then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great.
- Louisa May Alcott
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.
- Ernest Hemingway
A noble and God-like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with God-like thoughts.
- James Allen
My character is self-important, poorly informed, well-intentioned but an idiot,... So we said, Let's give him a promotion.
- Stephen Colbert
Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
- Heraclitus
Character is destiny
- Heraclitus
A man's character is his fate.
- Heraclitus
A man's character is his guardian divinity.
- Heraclitus
The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.
- Heraclitus
Character is destiny.
- Heraclitus
The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.
- Maya Angelou
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
- Maya Angelou
The test of character is having the ability to meet challenges.
- Walter Annenberg
Character is simply habit long continued.
- Plato
Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
- Quintus Tullius Cicero
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
- Thomas B Macaulay
All in all, Kirk's character is something I am very proud of.
- William Shatner
Character is the line in the sand between the worst of the good people and the best of the bad ones
- Johnny Flora
And what's interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.
- Rowan Atkinson
He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth, "which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.
- Jane Austen
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
- Thomas Babington Macaulay
Character is power.
- Booker T Washington
Character is power.
- Booker T Washington
Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Making cartoons means very hard work at every step of the way, but creating a successful cartoon character is the hardest work of all.
- Joseph Barbera
Character is better than ancestry, and personal conduct is of more importance than the highest.
- Thomas John Barnardo
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
A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.
Albert Camus - As quoted in Albert Camus : The Invincible Summer (1958) by Albert Maquet, p. 86; a remark made about the Marquis de Sade.
- Albert Camus
I am an American, Chicago born Chicago, that somber city and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.
- Saul Bellow
The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room; only one activity: clearing away...
The destructive character is young and cheerful. For destroying rejuvenates in clearing away traces of our own age..
- Walter Benjamin
I think the qualities I look for in a girl I'd like to be my girlfriend would be the way Lindsay's character is before she becomes a plastic. Very real.
- Jonathan Bennett
You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.
- Julie Benz
Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, for your character is what you are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
- Dale Carnegie
I never thought I could write this much and now that it's coming to an end, I feel sad that I have to stop, sort of the way you feel at the end of a really good book and you know you're going to miss the main character. But in this case, the main character is me! Myself. Joe (formerly JoDan) Bunch. Joe Bunch
- James Howe
And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground.
- Lara Flynn Boyle
Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him.
- Omar N Bradley
To me, the psychology behind the character is critical. So I work very hard to get into the mind of the man that I'm going to be playing, because number one, I want to understand why he's doing what he's doing. It's essential, it's absolutely essential.
- Andre Braugher
There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn't. I failed myself.
- Libba Bray
I think Bond the character is distinct: He's British, he has a certain code that he lives by, he's incorruptible... he's a classical hero, but he's also fallible. He has inner demons, inner conflicts, and he's a romantic.
- Barbara Broccoli
I probably wouldn't make a good accountant. I don't even understand what my accountant tells me. But the character is a sort of exaggerated version of me, he's a little more frightened than I am, everything seems so much bigger to him than it does to me.
- Matthew Broderick
Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.
- H Jackson Brown Jr
Obviously you have to have talent in order to play so you can't overlook that, but we won't overlook the character issue when it comes to talent because if they have talent and they don't have character, it's going to be very difficult to coach that person.
- Tim Buckley
The most boring scenes are the scenes where a character is alone.
- Chuck Palahniuk
Then there's going to be another project I am involved with, in fact, I'm going back to film it next week. It's a game for the Internet called Advance Warriors, and my character is Max, who is blind, but he has special powers. It will be a new game played on the Internet.
- Jeremy Bulloch
The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.
- Abigail Van Buren
Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
It's about avoiding reality through various escape routes that become addictions and lead to Hell. My character is addicted to television, chocolate, coffee, to her dream of her son, which has no basis in reality.
- Ellen Burstyn
Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.
- Gabriel Byrne
Writing a teen character is something I wanted to try again for a long time!
- Emily Giffin
Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing
- Voltaire
To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.
- Michael Caine
I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically.
A strong male character isn't interesting because it has been done and it's so cliched. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn't done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn't been done all that much, finding the balance of femininity and strength.
[From a 1986 Fangoria interview]
- James Cameron
A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.
- Orson Scott Card
Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.
- Giacomo Casanova
The only way I can be there and really get into the character is if I'm her.
- Lacey Chabert
Character is that which can do without success.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow.... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with?... Suicide is more respectable.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no telling what a human character is. Until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way --- whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of.
- Agatha Christie
A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Yeah, it is, because it's a real discovery of your inner resources, you know. That's what my character is all about and what my playing is all about. But to get up there and just go inside and draw out something that makes you feel good first and foremost.
- Eric Clapton
I don't theorize too much. I sort of let the experience sink in, and I have to discover what the character is by doing it, and having those thoughts that she's thinking.
- Jill Clayburgh
Character is a journey, not a destination.
- William J Clinton
The idea that every time you do a film you're supposed to be tortured confuses me. I mean, guys who say, 'Oh, it's really tough, my character is really suffering' -come on. For us, even in the rotten ones we've had a good time. I don't think you have to suffer.
- George Clooney
I guess there's a certain amount of poking fun at certain characters, but that's because there is something amusing about them or about the way they behave, so I guess you can say that that's poking fun at the character. But the character is your own invention, so who cares?
- Joel Coen
Character is more important than talent.
- Edwin Louis Cole
The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.
- Cyril Connolly
All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.
- James F Cooper
The head writer loves that my character is a boor.
- Rob Corddry
Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested And have the courage to accept that you're not perfect nothing is and no one is and that's OK.
- Katie Couric
Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.
- Jim Rohn
Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.
- Stephen Covey
No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character is a child.
- Charlotte Saunders Cushman
My character is meant to know nothing about rap, and not to like it very much, but I know about it, because my kids make me listen to it. There's some rap I do like very much. I like Eminem, Blackalicious.
- Harrison Ford
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
- Kurt Vonnegut
We all have an ongoing narrative inside our heads, the narrative that is spoken aloud if a friend asks a question. That narrative feels deeply natural to me. We also hang on to scraps of dialogue. Our memories don't usually serve us up whole scenes complete with dialogue. So I suppose I'm saying that I like to work from what a character is likely to remember, from a more interior place.
- Lydia Davis
One's character is set at an early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.
- Wendelin Van Draanen
Strength of character may be learned at work, but beauty of character is learned at home.
- Henry Drummond
To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.
- Michel De Montaigne
Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test... You will be tested by major changes, delayed promises, impossible problems, unanswered prayers, undeserved criticism, and even senseless tragedies.
- Rick Warren
It's a strange thing, but you get this click in your brain; the wonderful feeling that the entirety of a character is suddenly available and accessible to you.
- Chiwetel Ejiofor
Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.
- George Eliot
Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.
- Evan Esar
What I do when I create a character is put in details from all the people I know who might be like that person, and then put in a huge amount of myself.
- Jeffrey Eugenides
I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey for both.
- Ralph Fiennes
The strongest should come first in comedy because once a character is really established as funny everything he does is funny.
- F Scott Fitzgerald
Character is plot, plot is character.
- F Scott Fitzgerald
In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.
- Alan Dean Foster
Your reputation is what you're perceived to be,
Your character is what you really are
- John Wooden
The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching.
- John Wooden
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
- John Wooden
Having shot Stilt Man in the taint with a bazooka -- I've come to realize every character is somebodys favorite character.
- Matt Fraction
And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.
- Anna Friel
From slavery to segregation, we remember that America did not always live up to its ideals. In fact, we often fell far short of them. But we also learned that fundamental to our national character is the drive to live out the true meaning of our creed.
- Bill Frist
Character is destiny and character is important to American campaigns.
- Mark Shields
The character is close to me, except that I haven't lived through those situations, so it's not completely me.
- Charlotte Gainsbourg
Someone once said anyone can be great under rosy circumstances, but the true test of character is measured by how well a person makes decisions during difficult times.
- Jack Gantos
A woman can't do anything about her appearance. Either she's pretty or she isn't. But her character is quite another matter.
- Julie Garwood
No matter what the character is, I just say to myself 'If I, Melissa George, was in that situation, how would I react?' and once you do that you can just go for it, and hopefully the performance comes through.
- Melissa George
Character isn't what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn't a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context.
- Malcolm Gladwell
It's nice to play a character that has a soulful, dependent, close relationship. It must mean my character is interesting in some way.
- Jeff Goldblum
I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.
- Terry Goodkind
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
- Abraham Lincoln
I try to play characters who are different from myself, so I feel like this character is someone who is really different. I actually think that if I did what he did in this movie, I would get a restraining order put against me.
- Ryan Gosling
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
- Billy Graham
Character is fate.
- Sylvia Plath
I can't deceive myself that out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide.
- Sylvia Plath
People think being remembered most for one character is a negative thing, but I don't. I never expected to be remembered for anything!
- Mark Hamill
The power of faith will often shine forth the most when the character is naturally weak.
- Augustus Hare
I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.
- Salma Hayek
It's difficult to write a book where a character is on virtually every page of the book but you cannot refer to his or her gender. It gets rid of every his, her, she and he.
- William Least Heatmoon
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
- Christopher Hitchens
The German people in its whole character is not warlike, but rather soldierly, that is, while they do not want war, they are not frightened by the thoughts of it.
- Adolf Hitler
A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.
- Richard Hofstadter
The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.
- John Holt
Every role you play is literally - and I've said this before - every single role that you play, the only way you can connect to that character is because that was a piece of you that was scattered around that yard, almost like we got caught up in some whirlwind.
- Terrence Howard
Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.
- John Howe
Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
- Elbert Hubbard
Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
- David Hume
The more I think about myself, the more I'm persuaded that, as a person, I really don't exist. That is one of the reasons why I can't believe in any orthodox religion: I cannot believe in my own soul. No, I am a chemical compound, conditioned by environment and education. My "character" is simply a repertoire of acquired tricks, my conversation a repertoire of adaptations and echoes, my "feelings" are dictated by purely physical, external stimuli.
- Christopher Isherwood
Actors will never be replaced. The thought that somehow a computer version of a character is going to be something people prefer to look at is a ludicrous idea.
- Peter Jackson
One of the things I noticed more in this draft than in any recent drafts was the importance of the character issue. Players who had baggage, like Justice, fell much farther than his talent dictated. But a lot of coaches didn't want to take the chance.
- Ron Jaworski
Character is supreme in life, hence Jesus stood supreme in the supreme thing - so supreme that, when we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code but a character.
- E Stanley Jones
Character is doing what you don't want to do but know you should do.
- Joyce Meyer
True character is revealedby the way people react to the bigger challenges in life.
- Alyson Noel
An ignorant person with a bad character is like an unarmed robber, but a learned person with a blog is a robber fully armed.
- Mickey Kaus
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.
[from "The Circus Animals' Desertion"]
- W B Yeats
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
- Alexander Pope
The trick is to try and justify every word on the page and make sure my character is the man who would say that.
- Ben Kingsley
The tragic element of a character is always intriguing I think.
- Greg Kinnear
The way I approach the character isn't about being gay or straight. It's just about who you love. Gender has very little to do with it.
- Mia Kirshner
People don't change, they just have momentary steps outside of their true character, isolated actions contrary to their true nature.
- Chad Kultgen
My character is somebody who is smaller in stature and yet who's strong, so to see the fighting situations between people who are not generally thought of being strong is in itself unusual and therefore interesting, I think.
- Chiaki Kuriyama
We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability...We do not wish to be crudely manipulated...We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater.
- Anne Lamott
Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.
- Thomas Paine
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
- Thomas Paine
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
- Thomas Paine
That's sort of what I like about this character is that he's not the good guy, he's not truly the bad guy.
- Nicholas Lea
In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed.
- Gail Carson Levine
Character is character and voice is voice, which translates nicely from writing novels to writing TV. But the process is different. You have a writer's room, people pitch you jokes and you collaborate.
- Jennifer Weiner
So, it's cool that, yes, Hal Jordan is a superhero, but my character is a real-world hero in her own life.
- Blake Lively
A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
- Charles Spurgeon
His character is like an emeraldmultifaceted and enhanced by inclusions.
- Melika Dannese Lux
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
- Thomas Macaulay
There's always a concern as an actor that you'll be boring unless your character is swinging from a chandelier.
- Matthew Macfadyen
I'm a firm believer that character is highly overrated. Character is a trick that we do with the audience's collusion.
- William H Macy
Being a new character is like going to a new school. You have to try to maintain your own autonomy and your own personality.
- Mia Maestro
As Danton sees it, the most bizarre aspect of Camille's character is his desire to scribble over every blank surface; he sees a guileless piece of paper, virgin and harmless, and persecutes it till it is black with words, and then besmirches its sister, and so on, through the quire.
- Hilary Mantel
Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.
- Orison Swett Marden
I describe my plots as follows; A character is walking down the street when all of a sudden a piano falls on them. They spend the rest of the story digging out from under that piano. How they dig, how long and how well, this all depends entirely on the character.
- Sarah Zettel
Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.
- John C Maxwell
I love those preliminary conversations about who a character is. You try on wigs, shoes and clothes. It's preferable when it's not about looking pretty. It can get a little dull to just be cute. We talk about things like, maybe my character can't afford these Christian Louboutins.
- Rachel Mcadams
Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.
- Mignon Mclaughlin
What gives it its human character is that the individual through language addresses himself in the role of the others in the group and thus becomes aware of them in his own conduct.
- George Herbert Mead
Most of the time when I receive a script, it says something like 'Rosenberg is the fat, slovenly Mayor, who doesn't want the kids to use the skateboard park', or 'Stein is a pompous, rotund attorney, imposing to all.' It would be so freeing to get a script where my character is simply described as 'A Man'.
- Fred Melamed
My character is not flawless.
- Breckin Meyer
All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will,and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is their nature to live fir others;to make complete abnegation of themselves,and to have no life but in their affections.
- John Stuart Mill
A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.
- Arthur Miller
I made a decision not to work out because I'm lazy and also, the character is not a superhero. I didn't want him to be a buff guy with Jackie Chan moves because the point is he's smarter than your average Joe.
- Wentworth Miller
Of all the principles I'd learn about story, the idea that a character is what he does remains the hardest to actually live.
- Donald Miller
The Southern character is opposed to haste. Safety is of more worth than speed, and there is no hurry.
- Maria Mitchell
Character is what you are in the dark.
- Dwight L Moody
Character is what a man is in the dark.
- Dwight L Moody
A man's character is like his house. If he tears boards off his house and burns them to keep himself warm and comfortable, his house soon becomes a ruin. If he tells lies to be able to do the things he shouldn't do but wants to, his character will soon become a ruin. A man with a ruined character is a shame on the face of the earth.
- Ralph Moody
No matter what name we give it or how we judge it, a candidate's character is central to political reporting because it is central to a citizen's decision in voting.
- Roger Mudd
People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.
- Iris Murdoch
A character is a completely fashioned will.
- Novalis
If you carry the weather with you, then character is determined by the prevailing wind
- Jamie O Neill
Character is one of most precious parts of you. You can't get involved in things that will damage your character.
- Rod Paige
The world is full of novels in which characters simply say and do. There are certainly legitimate genres in which this is sufficient. But in real and lasting writing the character is.
- Ruth Park
Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.
- Charles Henry Parkhurst
You can't just trust to luck; you have to really listen to what that character is telling you.
- Estelle Parsons
I feel I do my best work when it's all there on the page, and I feel that the character is very vivid as I read the script and I'm not having to create stuff and trying to cobble together something. If I have to do that, then I don't entirely trust what I'm doing.
- Guy Pearce
the depth of a person's character is not measured by his or her physical strength, but by the depth of his or her nobility.
- Frank Peretti
But at the same time, the commonplace statement about them is true: every character is the hero of his own story. Each has a justification for his actions that is convincing to him. It's fun to give these people voices.
- Thomas Perry
A good character is something you must make for yourself. It cannot be inherited from parents. It cannot be created by having extraordinary advantages. It isn't a gift of birth, wealth, talent or station. It is the result of your own endeavor. It is the reward that comes from living good principles and manifesting a virtuous and honorable life.
- L Tom Perry
Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.
- Joaquin Phoenix
Character is long-standing habit.
- Plutarch
Character is simply habit long continued.
- Plutarch
The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.
- Quintilian
My preparation is mainly just knowing the lines and getting in and knowing where your character is, knowing what it's about and having ideas that you can put in on the day.
- Daniel Radcliffe
To have character is to be big enough to take life on.
- Mary Richards
I don't think my spirituality has affected my character. I feel like my character is much more cynical about his beliefs, and I think I have to kind of drop what I believe in order to play him.
- Jason Ritter
Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
- Cavett Robert
However dark and profitless, however painful and weary, existence may have become, life is not done, and our Christian character is not won, so long as God has anything left for us to suffer, or anything left for us to do.
- Frederick William Robertson
Here in New England, the character is strong and unshakable.
- Norman Rockwell
American society not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
- Philip Roth
Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.
- Marquis De Sade
So they've actually - it's not that her character is a singer, but she had ambition to do that at an earlier time in her life. So I've actually sung two or three times now on the show.
- Katey Sagal
The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.
- Esapekka Salonen
Because in fantasy perhaps more than in any other genre, the character is rewarded for making the right choices and punished for making the bad.
Ask Boromir.
- R A Salvatore
Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.
- George Santayana
Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.
- George Saunders
The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.
- Karl Friedrich Schlegel
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