Character Quotes - Page 258

Where the vivacity of the intellect and the strength of the passions exceed the development of the moral faculties the character is likely to be embittered or corrupted by extremes, either of adversity or prosperity.

What has a man's face to do with his character? Can a man of good character help having a disagreeable face?

Liberals could live their whole lives never having to hear an actual conservative opinion other than the idiotic arguments written for conservative characters on Aaron Sorkin's little teleplays.

I do believe that characters in novels belong to their writers and their readers pretty equally. I've learned a lot of things about the characters I write from people who read about them. Readers expand them in ways I don't think of and take them to places I can't go.

Quite often my narrator or protagonist may be a man, but I'm not sure he's the more interesting character, or if the more complex character isn't the woman.

I usually make up stories for my kids.I like to tell them stories and make up any kind of crazy to involve them in characters. The kind of fairytales I don't like are the ones with happy endings, where there's just good and evil and things are perfect. I think when there's a good story for children it has a moral tale, so that's what I try to teach my kids.

Ordinary people regard a man of a certain force and flexibility of character as they do a lion; they look at him with a sort of wonder, perhaps they admire him; but they will on no account house with him.

Your talent and giftedness as a leader have the potential to take you farther than your character can sustain you. That ought to scare you.

Animators do amazing working translating and interpolating the characters [in the Planet of the apes], the facial performances. What we're creating on set - if you don't get it on the day, in the moment, on set, in front of the camera, with the director and the actors. The emotional content of the scene and the acting choices.

Comedy always works better when you're tracking the story and you care about the characters. That's why there's a lot of movies where there's not a ton of jokes, but you get huge laughs because there's a moment of relief.

I would like the events never to be told directly by the author, but rather to be introduced (and several times, from various angles) by those among the characters on whom they will have had any effect. I would like those events, in the account they will make of them, to appear slightly distorted; a kind of interest stems, for the reader, from the simple fact that he should need to restore. The story requires his collaboration in order to properly take shape.

If I speak with a character’s voice it is because that character’s become so much part of me that … I think I have the right then to imagine myself into the skin, into the life, into the dreams, into the experience of the particular character that I’ve chosen.

I remember a table in BarchesterTowers that had more character than the combined heroes of three recent novels I've read.

The shell is America's most active contribution to the formation of character. A tough hide. Grow it early.

The faculty of continual transformation... is a profound expression of the dynamic character of the mind

I believe that every character I create is in their own film, that happens to overlap with the main film. There are complete and real characters, even though we only spend only a little time with them. In the approach to what those entities are, that always appeals to an actor. What are they, since they are going to embody this character?

I think bringing depth to characters means really needing to find out who this girl is, what is she passionate about, what makes her tick, what gets her going in life. So I did a lot of backstory for who she was and sometimes it comes across screen and sometimes it doesn't. You never know, because you're not the director, but you can only do your work and hope that it somehow subtly is infiltrated in that. But I think the characters I've played for the most part have depth, just not in the way that you think they do.

I have to say I enjoy physical comedy and I've always loved to kind of take risks. I don't like worrying too much about how I look or how I come across, so that can sometimes... You know, I like to play those kinds of deluded but fun characters.

The most important thing in the job is to make movies about women where they are characters that have consequences in the story. They can be villains, they can be protagonists, I don't care but their movements, their actions what they do in the plot has to actually matter.

I'm not first and foremost interested in story and the what-happens, but I'm interested in who's telling it and how they're telling it and the effects of whatever happened on the characters and the people.

Everybody is a main character to someone

ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil.

A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the "buffone", or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.

SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as... the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.

When I go into making a movie, personally, I don't try to bring other pieces of movies with me. I think that finding a character, relating to her and making her as real as possible means forgetting all of that stuff and just trying to find the truth, in that particular character's words.