Character quotes

Character

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

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Character quotes (page 145 of 739)

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Marcus Tullius Cicero Politician, Philosopher, Orator
Character

"When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain."

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Character

"It's not success that makes a person's life worthy of legend. It's provocative defeat, someone who struggled mightily and lost. And that loss can't just be gratuitous - there has to be something about his or her character that whittles that loss into something provocative."

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Katie Aselton Actress
Character

"I came to filmmaking as an actor looking for great characters and great opportunities, both of which are kind of hard to come by. It turns out I really love the process. And, it's exciting to be able to take my career by the reigns and make things happen for myself. Hopefully, in doing so, more opportunities will become available to me."

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Katie Cassidy Actress
Character

"I try mainly to just focus on character and what my character's point of view is, with each person, and try to figure out story."

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Katie Cassidy Actress
Character

"I try to keep myself in what I'm doing and focused on character stuff, as opposed to getting wrapped up in worrying or being nervous. It won't benefit me, in any way, to focus on that."

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Katie Cassidy Actress
Character

"The way I prepare is through script analysts and back story. I create back story for a character based on script analysts, filling in as many details as possible. I also do a lot of research."

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Katie Finneran Actress
Character

"I love singing and I think I have a really nice voice, but I don't think I have an unbelievable singing voice. I think I have a great character voice."

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Ishmael Reed Writer
Character

"Phillip Roth uses his Black women characters to make anti intellectual remarks about Black history month, begun by a man who reached intellectual heights that Roth will never attain. Roth is a petty bigot and his ignorant remarks about black culture expose him as a buffoon to scholars the world over."

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Ishmael Reed Writer
Character

"I use non-fiction work written by Whites in my research. It's indispensable. That wasn't the problem. I said that "The Wire" was a cliché! It's like my writing a series about Jewish life and casting all of the characters as inside traders."

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Ishmael Reed Writer
Character

"In Crash, you've got a pathological cop who at the end justifies police brutality. He tells the naïve, young cop that you're going to end up the same as him. He's the most sympathetic character in the movie. So, the naïve cop ends up murdering this Black kid and tries to cover up the evidence. It sort of justifies police brutality and the planting of evidence which is what happened in the O.J. Simpson case."

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Gene Wilder Actor, comedian
Character

"You say the character [of Leo Bloom] was meek and insecure, and you could've been describing me as well. I was a very shy person in those days, and working with Zero [Mostel], who was bigger than life, helped me grow. Zero was a strong influence on me."

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Character

"Some TV shows are like really good novels in that there are enough episodes that you start to have your own feelings about how the characters should act. When the scriptwriters go slightly wrong, when they make the character make a left turn that he or she wouldn't do, you know enough about the characters to say, "No, that's not what she would do there. That's wrong." You can actually argue with a TV show in a way that you can't do as much with movie - you inhabit a TV show in the way you inhabit a novel."

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Margaret Fuller Transcendentalist, Writer
Character

"The persons whom you have idolized can never, in the end, be ungrateful, and, probably, at the time of retreat they still do justice to your heart. But, so long as you must draw persons too near you, a temporary recoil is sure to follow. It is the character striving to defend itself from a heating and suffocating action upon it."

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