Character Quotes

I liked 35 and in both my novels that is the age of the lead characters. I tried making them my age but they just seemed to keep moaning about stuff.

Do not, however, mistake me. It is not to my good friend's heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary, 'tis his honesty that brought upon him the character of a heretic.

To be thrown upon one's own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previosly unsusceptible.

I never wanted to be commissioned to paint portraits. I like to choose my own subject and make a character study from it.

I use a lot of sense memory and, well, I can't really avoid getting into character.

Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.

I have been reading the press more regularly than others over 50 years and it seems to me that there are things that have changed in the press that have changed its character.

You carve out the organization's character through your daily choices. You shape its conscience as you exercise your own.

I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin

Well what do you do with a character like Christine Cagney and you tell her she can't have things?

I belonged to Stratford Children's Theater when I was a boy growing up in Manchester. Even then, I was always doing character parts.

I think the approach of the character for us is the same in a silent movie as in a talking movie because we had balance, we had lines to learn.

The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.

You have before you the task of seeking new ways to announce Christ in situations of rapid and often profound transformation, and of emphasizing the missionary character of all pastoral activity.

Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation.

It is no flattery to give a friend a due character; for commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension.

Whether I'm interested [in something] or not, step one is read the script and figure out if a character is someone I'd want to explore or not.

Hemingway was a prisoner of his style. No one can talk like the characters in Hemingway except the characters in Hemingway. His style in the wildest sense finally killed him.

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.

Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.

Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.

Sin may then be defined ultimately as anything in the creature which does not express, or which is contrary to, the holy character of the Creator

The character of covetousness, is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence.

I hadn't done just a straight-out comedy in a long time, just letting an ensemble do really good character acting, having them carry the movie as in my earlier pictures

Most of my stories are ideas in action. In other words, I get a concept, and I let it run away. I find a character to act out the idea. And then the story takes care of itself.

It is far pleasanter to injure and afterwards beg forgiveness than to be injured and grant forgiveness. He who does the former gives evidence of power and afterwards of kindness of character.

If you're a fiction writer, though, I can tell you how to let people talk through you. Listen. Just be quiet, and listen. Let the character talk. Don't censor, don't control. Listen, and write.

My characters talk to one another, and when it reaches a certain pitch of excitement I jump out of bed and run and trap them before they are gone.

You need to keep your creative juices flowing and keep [your] character interesting.

It's funny - Frankie Valli's story and that advice that he was just getting from, you know, Christopher Walken's character, is very true for someone who's in a creative field.

Every thing in human character goes to wreck, under the reign of procrastination, while prompt action gives to all things a corresponding and proportional life and energy.

I regard writing not as an investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with this I am obsessed.

A scientist is an unlikely character to put at the center of a movie.

I'm usually working on my own mythology, my own realm of created characters. Stories in mythology inspire me, though I may not be conscious of it.

Sometimes suffering is just suffering,” she told Gus. “It doesn't make you stronger. It doesn't build character. It only hurts.

There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly.

Poe was the first writer to write about main characters who were bad guys or who were mad guys, and those are some of my favorite stories.

Obsession led me to write. It's been that way with every book I've ever written. I become completely consumed by a theme, by characters, by a desire to meet a challenge.

I'm interested in character and dialogue and exchange of ideas.

What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.

You don't want to shock them and do something totally opposite, but you also want to play a different character.

Beware 'good' main characters who have a limited repertory of culturally acceptable feelings, while your evil bastards have a full range of vivid, passionate feelings.

I don't think about relatability (when writing), I think about the heart of the character.

You know like it has its own personality, its own character.

A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character, as an ink-drop soileth the pure white page.

It may be asserted without scruple, that no otherclass of dependants have had their character so entirely distorted from its natural proportions by their relations with their masters.

I had always functioned with dignity, wanting to appear intelligent, macho, never vulnerable or insecure. But now I realize that... a part of these comic characters is a fundamental part of me too.

Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

Women show off their personality and character through accessories more than with low-cut shirts and skirts with huge slits.

The very difference of character in marriage produces a harmonious combination.