Character Quotes - Page 483

The energy is important. It's the rebirth of the character. Even more than the sentence itself, it's the energy that has to come through. It's really 'Thank you!'

Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture. [Fr., La physionomie n'est pas une regle qui nous soit donnee pour juger des hommes; elle nous peut servir de conjecture.]

A man without characteristics is a most insipid character.

People reveal their character even in the simplest things they do. Fools do not enter a room, nor leave it, nor sit down, nor rise, nor are they silent, nor do they stand up, like people of sense and understanding.

A well-born man is fortunate, but so is the man about whom people no longer ask, 'is he well-born?'

There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.

I just always look for stuff that has a character-driven thing.

Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.

In the clubs, it's all out and you can say whatever as the character. TV has standards.

But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.

I sometimes think I should like to give up business entirely. The care and worriment attending large business interests are very great, but besides that fact the manner in which motives are impugned and characters assailed is most unpleasant

As an actor, you can't judge. A great actress from Spain said, "We, the actors, are lawyers of the characters we play. We have to defend them, no matter what."

I don't think an actor needs to necessarily go through his things to do his job. I think it's way more important to imagine. And then, when you're imagining, your experiences, your images and your own personal things will show up, but you keep imagining. You don't get stuck in your own personal things, otherwise you are telling your story in every character, and that's not interesting for anybody.

What I strive to do is make my characters seem like real people so that the reader experiences them as people - that's something I've been working on all of my life. I couldn't have written this novel at twenty or thirty, for technical reasons - I didn't have the technique then - but above all because I didn't have the life experiences I have now at sixty-seven.

I take all my characters very seriously - the main, secondary, and supporting characters. Even if they only appear once, they still need to have their own life. Some characters are absent literally but at the same time very, very present.

The reader has information about the characters that the characters themselves don't have. We all have our secret sides. Even I come to understand things about the characters only through the writing process, as I am going along.

I think that's true of real life - we don't ever know anyone completely. Secrets are very important to creating a narrative work that's believable. The characters come into that world with secrets, as happens to all of us. As honest as we try to be in our relationships, we can never completely know someone. From a narrative perspective it's very important and pleasing - you want to have those secrets there. The secret is an essential part of the creation of the novel.

...being written by someone who might not quite understand the subconscious nuance of the character leaves us in varying degrees of flatness.

I would so hate to be a first-person character! Always on your guard, always having people read your thoughts!

A lot of actors are frustrated because they want to do things that are different and test themselves. Character actors are always looking for something the opposite of what they did.

Simplicity of living gives you sensitivity of character. A lot of people told me that leaving L.A. and moving to Volcano (district of the Big Island) would ruin my career, but that's my kuleana, my business.

I love the idea of playing a character that didn't over think everything. He knows what's in front of him and he has an ability to just say whatever he felt.

When I think of 'Nightmare on Elm Street,' there was a warmth to those teenagers that I related to. They were not aware that they were in the middle of a horror film, and I really loved those characters and I empathized with them.

I think thats what I really liked about Narc: My character has a real operatic range in a way that older movies used to have.

Whatever character you're playing you have to complete the entire interior infrastructure, whatever it is - but what gets divulged or what people completely understand depends on the script and what you decide to show. But you have to know it.