Character Quotes - Page 335

I've always said, I prefer the opera to the soap - those extreme characters and circumstances.

A character, to be acceptable as more than a chess piece, has to be ignorant of the future, unsure about the past, and not at all sure of what he's supposed to be doing.

You end up loving every character that you play but a lot of the people I've played, I should just say for myself, I played, I wouldn't necessarily want to continue playing them. I've done them. It's like going on a trip. You go, you're amazed, you're glad you're there but you're glad to get home. And that's how I feel most of the time.

Novels institutionalize the ruse of eros. It becomes a narrative texture of sustained incongruence, emotional and cognitive. It permits the reader to stand in triangular relation to the characters in the story and reach into the text after the objects of their desire, sharing their longing but also detached from it, seeing their view of reality but also its mistakenness. It is almost like being in love.

Americans like warm characters. It's why, no matter what he did in the early days, they kind of resonated to Bill Clinton because he seems like a guy that you could sit down and have a burger and a beer with. It's even why, despite the fact that he sometimes seemed to be not firing on all cylinders, lots of them still like George W. Bush - because he seemed like the kind of guy you could have a burger and a beer with.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

You put a character out there and you're in their power. You're in trouble if they're in yours.

I hadn't mentioned, but Ching Shih is a pretty villainous character. She is a real person, but she was a pirate commander, so she probably murdered a lot of people.

A lot of people don't see me as a funny character because I don't usually get to play them. I'm usually cast in the more dramatic roles, so it's been a really, really fun time playing her humor and her attitude. She's a complete tomboy, so I did a really intense study on men and how they relate to each other, in the way they walk and hold themselves and position themselves in the hierarchy, just in something as simple as a conversation.

...I believe it is now the duty of the slaves of the South to rebuke their masters for their robbery, oppression and crime.... Nostation or character can destroy individual responsibility, in the matter of reproving sin.

My most serious character flaw is that I don't deny myself much.

I started in comedy when I first started as an actor on stage and doing improvisational theater and stuff like that. So a lot of people who know me know that sort of side of me. But I got the roles that I got as an young actor kind of steered me in a different direction, which were, at times, darker characters. And so comedy was not something that came easy for people to think of my in those terms.

I write easily, let's put it that way. And in a novel particularly, the characters take over. And they tell me what to say and they tell me what they're doing. And I'm a third of the way into a novel and then I just let the characters finish it for me.

Well, I'm also like 23 and playing 16. So maybe when I'm 30 I'll be playing characters in their early 20s. I don't know.

How I work is I work from of very character-driven place. And I trust the writers.

Ever hear the expression "write what you know?" My version says "write what you want to know." If you want to know about the history of Spain, write about the history of Spain - fiction or nonfiction. If your fascinated by the old west, maybe your character lives there.

RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.

I say I'm a rebel. I'm continually fighting against [sexism]. I don't take parts because they're for the sexy girl. I take the sexy girl parts and try to give them something else and make them a character.

Growing up, I didn't receive the representation that I wanted so badly. I was always looking out for black characters - black women - that were specifically just about existing and weren't necessarily racialized or were centered around race.

I feel like the world is dominated by such a small group of human beings. There are so many different kinds of people that aren't represented, that don't have characters who look like them. And that's one of the reasons why I intend on being a director, because I want to actually tell some of these stories. I also think that we place such intense emphasis on award shows when they're not necessarily the best reflection of how good the work is. We need to realize that art and creation are so much bigger than an award or any measure of accomplishment.

It's a challenge for me to make people like me. Maybe it's just my desperate need for people to like me, that I choose the characters I have to play. You will like me, I don't care what I've done, you're going to like me.

All a writer's characters are imaginary, no matter whether they are based on real people or not. They are people as one imagines them to be.

That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.

The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.

I get very involved in my characters. Sometimes I have a very hard time separating my characters from my life.