Character Quotes

Very few of my characters are totally heroic or totally villainous.

There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.

When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.

Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.

It was observed of Elizabeth that she was weak herself, but chose wise counsellors; to which it was replied, that to choose wise counsellors was, in a prince, the highest wisdom.

I find the characters in my head and the more I write about them, the better I get to know them.

My characters seem real because they are drawn from the realities of my life. I didn't have to research their pain; I just tapped into my own.

"Why, what I may think after dinner," returns Mr. Jobling, "is one thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another thing."

Being that rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a hint that it might be Better and catches light from any little spot of darkness near her.

But the words she spoke of Mrs Harris, lambs could not forgive ... nor worms forget.

"Ecod, you may say what you like of my father, then, and so I give you leave," said Jonas. "I think it's liquid aggravation that circulates through his veins, and not regular blood..."

The citizen ... preserved the resolute bearing of one who was not to be frowned down or daunted, and who cared very little for any nobility but that of worth and manhood.

"I fear your kind and open communication, which has rendered me more painfully conscious of my own defects, has not improved me," sighed Kate.

You are always training yourself to be, mind and body, as clear as crystal, and you always are, and never change; whereas I am a muddy, solitary, moping weed.

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed.

A brisk, bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very neat figure and rather under the middle size, never out of the way and never in it.

It was the momentary yielding of a nature that had been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not quite given up all its hopeful yearnings yet.

She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful.

Everything that Mr Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly.

He was a very young boy; quite a little child. His hair still hung in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light was of Heaven, not earth.

All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for 'em - but marriage is a lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she feels the independence and the safety of a single life.

... Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.

Over the whole, a young lady presided, whose gloomy haughtiness as she surveyed the street, announced a deep-seated grievance against society, and an implacable determination to be avenged.

"I know quite enough of myself," said Bella, with a charming air of being inclined to give herself up as a bad job, "and I don't improve upon acquaintance..."

I was born a character actor.

Character is, for the most part, simply habit become fixed.

Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect.

Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.

When an image is said to be singular, it is meant that it is absolutely determinate in all respects. Every possible character, or the negative thereof, must be true of such an image.

If the Savior has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, He has nothing in you of a saving character.

I am certain that the safest way to defend your character is never to say a word about it.

I don't keep anything on paper (except within an actual novel in progress, at which point I need a file to keep track of plot threads, characters, and so on).

For the people who don't know, my character could described, in a nutshell, as the bar dumb-dumb.

In my theater days I assumed that you had to get rid of yourself to do a character well, and I don’t think I was a very good actor when I did that.

Well, you know, I don't think anyone who writes a television series has a master plan from the beginning, and knows all the character traits, and everything that's going to happen.

One of the great things about being involved with comics is that those people are devoted to their characters, writers and artists. The average comic reader isn't casual about their habit.

Too often do reviewers remind us of the mob of Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered before 'the writing on the wall' and unable to read the characters or make known the interpretation.

I've never played a character where I've had so much fun on the physical end. I don't want to say I like it too much but it's fun having a gun on you and getting to manhandle men.

It's fashionable for modern actors to talk about getting 'inside' a character. But you can't get to the inside without getting the outside right first.

There are lots and lots of different films that I love, and watching different characters and how different people play them.

I definitely did not play myself. As the writer of the script, I have traits of all the characters. I can relate to all of the characters.

For me, it's important that I experience and feel what the characters are feeling. So I put myself in those moments, in their thoughts, and let it happen naturally. I write what I feel.

While my work is usually about the Igbo woman experience, there are many aspects of my female characters that women everywhere can and do relate to.

Hillary Clinton, as an awful judge of the character of a dictator and butcher in the Middle East. Is she guilty or not guilty?

As a former federal prosecutor, I welcome the opportunity to hold Hillary Rodham Clinton accountable for her performance and her character.

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

Not often do you approach a character where people know more about him than you do.

You get the part, sign the contract and start to realize millions of people follow this guy and know more about your character than you do