Character quotes

Character

14.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

14.8K quotes

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Browse quotes that often appear alongside character — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Thinking 95.1K quotes Writing 30.7K quotes Men 68.6K quotes People 100.4K quotes Play 12.5K quotes Real 21.1K quotes

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Character quotes (page 106 of 739)

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Elif Batuman Author
Character

"I do like the idea of the novel of repressed college students being a contemporary novel of courtship! I guess what I would say to that is, we tend to think of historical periods and historical mores as ending a lot more concretely than they do. Like, in an Austen novel, there are lots of reasons - cultural, moral, religious - why the characters don't have sex during courtship. Maybe, even though those reasons have kind of expired, historically, they're still around in some sense."

Character Religious Sex
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Elizabeth Gilbert Author, Memoirist
Character

"We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, drastic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality. To know God, you only need to renounce one thing - your sense of division from God"

Ideas Character Order
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Elizabeth Gilbert Author, Memoirist
Character

"God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality."

Character Spiritual Order
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Character

"Plotting is difficult for me, and always has been. I do that before I actually start writing, but I always do characters, and the arc of the story, first... You can't do anything without a story arc. Where is it going to begin, where will it end."

Writing Character Stories
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Character

"Creating the characters is the most creative part of the novel except for the language itself. There I am, sitting in front of my computer in right-brain mode, typing the things that come to mind - which become the seeds of plot. It's scary, though, because I always wonder: Is it going to be there this time?"

Character Creative Creating
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Character

"I have to know the killer, the victim and the motive when I begin. Then I start to create the characters and see how the novel takes shape based on what these people are like."

People Character Shapes
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Character

"I'm interested in the dark side of man. I'm interested in taboos, and murder is the greatest taboo. Characters are fascinating in their extremity, not in their happiness."

Men Character Dark
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Character

"Many in Hollywood viewed the public persona of the young Debbie Reynolds as demure and vulnerable to be a complete facade. Pianist Oscar Levant once quipped, "She's as wistful as an iron factory.""

Character Personality Iron
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Ellen DeGeneres Comedian, Television Host
Character

"When I decided to have my character on the show come out, I knew I was going to have to come out, too. I never wanted to be the lesbian actress. I never wanted to be the spokesperson for the gay community. Ever. I did it for my own truth."

Character Community Gay
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Ellen DeGeneres Comedian, Television Host
Character

"Some celebrities, it's interesting, because they're fantastic playing a character when somebody is writing the lines for them, and they're amazing actors, but they're not as comfortable on television in front of a live audience and just having a conversation and being themselves."

Writing Character Interesting
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Emily Barton Author
Character

"Teaching is enormously satisfying because I'm constantly learning more. Just constantly being exposed to new voices and new life experiences and new worldviews and new structural dilemmas and new characters - it's really exciting for me."

Character Voice Teaching
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Emma Stone Actress
Character

"I think Skeeter even says that when she calls up Miss Stein. "No one asked Mammy how she feels in Gone With The Wind." Mammy wasn't really much of a fleshed-out character. She was just kind of there to take care of Miss Scarlett."

Thinking Character Missing
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Emma Watson Actress, Activist
Character

"What I find difficult about photo shoots is the line between playing a character - you're being asked by the photographer to take on a role like you would in a movie - and being a fancier version of yourself. It's about finding that line between being spontaneous and open to direction, but also trying to explain to photographers that the "me" is often taken out of context because it has all of this other stuff attached to it."

Trying Character Taken
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Emma Watson Actress, Activist
Character

"I love people like Renée Zellweger who aren't afraid to look unattractive and really put themselves into a character role and to really be an actress instead of just thinking "Am I on-screen pouting and looking beautiful?" because that's not really what it's about."

Thinking Character Beautiful
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Epictetus Philosopher
Character

"To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man."

Men Character Lovers
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Epictetus Philosopher
Character

"Remember that you are an actor in a play, and that the Playwright chooses the manner of it: If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man. For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well. The choice of the cast is Another's."

Men Character Business
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