Character Quotes - Page 225

I try to distinguish my characters from each other.

The prince in The Leopard was a very complex character - at times autocratic, rude, strong - at times romantic, good, understanding - and sometimes even stupid, and above all, mysterious.

I think I came across Cecil Taylor a bit later, in 65 or 66. That really impressed me - Cecil Taylor is an amazing character... Both his music and the way he approaches the instrument are astonishing.

The most direct and enduring way to reach the mind and imagination of the learner is through the mind, imagination and character of the outstanding teacher.

Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear, or laziness?

Since I knew I was going to make a film that was purely about emotions, and I knew that I ran the risk of being accused of amnesia relating to the social film, to prevent this I decided it would be good to have characters who were on the margins of society. These are characters for whom love is really the only way to know that they're alive.

Whoever plays deep must necessarily lose his money or his character.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

I make up the characters in my books, but of course my consciousness is filled with every child I've ever known, including my two grandchildren, my own kids (I had four) and especially myself as a child, because that person still lives inside me, too.

People do not spring forth out of the blue, fully formed – they become themselves slowly, day by day, starting from babyhood. They are the result of both environment and heredity, and your fictional characters, in order to be believable, must be also.

For me, being able to be vulnerable is difficult, but it's just something that I feel comfortable doing. I need to fully understand why, the thought-process behind the character and I have to believe it. That comes from a lot of preparation.

By God's design, I believe our hearts and minds are shaped by Story. It's how we learn. It's how we make sense of the world. Characters, situations, moral consequences are all around us.

I still read romance, and I read suspense. I read them both. And part of it is, I like stories with strong characters, and I like stories where there's closure at the end. And I like stories where there's hope. That's a kind of empowerment. I think romance novels are very empowering, and I think suspense novels are, too.

Please don't mistake who I am for who the character is.

It was interesting to portray a character that was so far removed from today's world, but was also at the forefront of feminism at that time.

Every once in a while a messy character who manifests a REAL body emerges, for instance, Lisbeth Salander - and certainly commercial genre fiction is full of examples of real bodied sexual encounters or violence encounters - but for the most part, and particularly if you are a woman or minority author, your characters' bodies have to fit a kind of norm inside a narrow set of narrative pre-ordained and sanctioned scripts.

I always want the audience to identify with my character in some way. I mean, sometimes you'll get characters that aren't very identifiable. Sometimes you can't relate to your character at all.

I miss the days when I was alone with my characters and no one else knew them except me.

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.

I understand why creative people like dark, but American audiences dont like dark. They like story. They do not respond to nervous breakdowns and unhappy episodes that lead nowhere. They like their characters to be a part of the action. They like strength, not weakness, a chance to work out any dilemma.

It's one of the most liberating things I experience in writing - letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point that always nagged, even if you couldn't admit to yourself that it did.

I'm unhappy with the President Trump. I don't like his behavior, and I'm a Republican, and I don't like his policies because they're almost the antithesis of the American character of generosity, of charity, of welcoming, of helping, of taking risks. You think of the lives that were expended in World War I and World War II to help others, and they say now we'll draw up the bridge and we'll protect ourselves. We won't have a broader role in humanity.

You have something special, you have GREATNESS within you!

Yes, I can play younger than my age. But I can play characters older than I am, too. I'm not an actor who can just play the kid.

Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'.