Character quotes
14.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside character — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"It really depends on what the screenplay is asking of you, and what your responsibility is to that character. You have the author's intent to deal with, you have the filmmaker's vision, and then you have your own wants, desires and needs for the character. It's collaborative. But I knew, right off the bat, that there was no way to go into some sort of pink-haired, clown-nosed character with Ronald McDonald shoes."
"And then, 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' Those things just became so important to the character. You realize that the more you read it, if I read the book again today, I'd find 100 other things that I missed last time. It's a constantly changing book."
"Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character."
"You're trying to bring a character to an audience, and tell stories. That's what we're all trying do."
"When you're playing a character, you don't really want to have an opinion about where you're going to end up. Otherwise, you can't really stay in the moment and in your character."
"As an actor, you don't want to know the beginning and end to your character's arc. It makes it more fun. You're not playing the end. You're playing it realistically. You don't know where this character is going to go and what's going to happen to him, which just makes it more interesting for the viewers to watch. They're going on the journey with you, as the actor and the character."
"Many of the characters are fools and they're always playing tricks on me and treating me badly."
"That is the dream of all novelists-that one of their characters will become 'somebody.'"
"When the mind once allows a doubt to gain entrance, the value of deeds performed grow less, their character changes, we forget the past and dread the future."
"I’d like to be the kind of actor who is remembered for my character. You know how there are cases where even when you watch all the way through the end of a drama, you remember the actor’s name, not the character’s. I want my character’s name to be more remembered than mine."
"Barrie and the wonderful characters he created, Lewis Carroll, even French literature, like Baudelaire or over in the States, Poe, you open those books, you open The Flowers of Evil and begin to read. If it were written today, you'd be absolutely stupefied by the work. It's this incredible period where the work is timeless, ageless. So yeah, I just love all those guys. It's my deep passion in those great 19th century writers."
"All action is for the sake of some end; and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subservient."
"Miracles have no claim whatever to the character of historical facts and are wholly invalid as evidence of any revelation."
"I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character."
"For me, clothes are kind of a character. They're more interesting in those terms."
"The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented."
"When you look at a character and you're like, "Wow, that's really unexplored terrain for me and there's a lot happening here and different angles to him," and you're not sure what his motives are, you've got a good shot at working towards something interesting."
"The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us;– they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its numbers; to look upon our vast natural resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as means to be converted by the refining alchemy of education into mental and spiritual treasures; ...and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power."
"Take your time and make sure the person who you do intend to have sex with is someone you deeply love and care about, and make sure you get to know them as much as you can, and make sure by having sex you don't compromise your character."
"The character of the architectural forms and spaces which all people habitually encounter are powerful agencies in determining the nature of their thoughts, their emotions and their actions, however unconscious of this they may be."
