Top character Quotes Collection

Discover a curated collection of character quotes. Find inspiration, motivation, and wisdom from the best quotes in this category.

Image of Patrick deWitt
Luck was something you either earned or invented through strength of character. You had to come by it honestly; you could not trick or bluff your way into it.
- Patrick deWitt
Collection: Character
Image of Patrick deWitt
This perhaps was what lay at the root of the hysteria surrounding what came to be known as the Gold Rush: Men desiring a feeling of fortune; the unlucky masses hoping to skin or borrow the luck of others, or the luck of a destination. A seductive notion, and one I thought to be wary of. To me, luck was something you either earned or invented through strength of character. You had to come by it honestly; you could not trick or bluff your way into it.
- Patrick deWitt
Collection: Character
Image of Francis Parkman
In one point the plan was fatally defective, since it involved the deadly enmity of a race whose character and whose power were as yet but ill understood,--the fiercest, boldest, most politic, and most ambitious savages to whom the American forest has ever given birth.
- Francis Parkman
Collection: Character
Image of Gordon Korman
Dan instantly recognized the angry scratch that stretched from the corner of Ian's eye all the way along the olive skin to his chin. "Have you been messing with Saladin?" "No. Saladin has been messing with me," Ian shot back. "He isn't big on Lucians," Dan explained. "Animals are really good judges of character.
- Gordon Korman
Collection: Character
Image of Rachel Weisz
I prefer smaller movies because they tend to be more about character than about story.
- Rachel Weisz
Collection: Character
Image of Mark Gatiss
That's what makes characters interesting. If Sherlock [Holmes] had started out being a straightforward man, we wouldn't be talking about him now. If he became one, that would be interesting. But you have to give him somewhere to go, as [Conan] Doyle did.
- Mark Gatiss
Collection: Character
Image of Mark Gatiss
[Toby Jones] is completely different. It's a completely different character. He's the darkest villain we've had. There was always something charming and engaging about Moriarty. There was something fascinating and actually amoral, rather than immoral, about Charles Augustus Magnussen. This guy is the purest evil. Sherlock [Holmes] is actually appalled by him.
- Mark Gatiss
Collection: Character
Image of Lauren F. Winner
I am not a saint. I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God.
- Lauren F. Winner
Collection: Character
Image of Jessica Biel
Definitely. Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore - women that have no boundaries, no borders. They can do anything, They can be any character and you accept it and go with it as a viewer, and as an audience member. That's the kind of career that I'm looking for.
- Jessica Biel
Collection: Character
Image of Russell Kirk
To check centralization and usurping of power ... we require a new laissez-faire. The old laissez-faire was founded upon a misapprehension of human nature, an exultation of individuality (in private character often a virtue) to the condition of a political dogma, which destroyed the spirit of community and reduced men to so many equipollent atoms of humanity, without sense of brotherhood or purpose.
- Russell Kirk
Collection: Character
Image of David Thewlis
Alfonso Cuarón, in the rehearsals, without J.K. Rowling's knowledge, told me that [my character] was, in fact, gay. So I'd been playing a part like a gay man for quite a long time. Until it turned out that I indeed got married to Tonks. I changed my whole performance after that. Just saw it as a phase he went through.
- David Thewlis
Collection: Character
Image of Keri Russell
I think love is a great catalyst for many characters to further the story or their own growth.
- Keri Russell
Collection: Character
Image of Tommy Tenney
God is more interested in developing your character than keeping you comfortable.
- Tommy Tenney
Collection: Character
Image of Rose Tremain
Respect the way characters may change once they've got 50 pages of life in them. Revisit your plan at this stage and see whether certain things have to be altered to take account of these changes.
- Rose Tremain
Collection: Character
Image of Franka Potente
As the audience, I always love to get to a point where, surprisingly, I find myself in a secret friendship allegiance with the characters that are unexpected.
- Franka Potente
Collection: Character
Image of Kiera Cass
It doesn't really matter how you feel about your character; it just matters what you do with it.
- Kiera Cass
Collection: Character
Image of H. P. Blavatsky
Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time.
- H. P. Blavatsky
Collection: Character
Image of Don Roff
If you treat your characters like people, they'll reward you by being fully developed individuals.
- Don Roff
Collection: Character
Image of Don Roff
Love it when a compelling new character kicks open your mental door, tracks mud across your brain, and props their feet up on your cerebrum.
- Don Roff
Collection: Character
Image of Don Roff
If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart.
- Don Roff
Collection: Character
Image of Jacqueline Woodson
There's me in every character I put on the pages.
- Jacqueline Woodson
Collection: Character
Image of Hiromu Arakawa
Truth is stranger than fiction," as the old saying goes. When I watch a documentary, I can't help crying and then I think to myself, "Fiction can't compete with this." But when I mentioned this to a veteran manga artist friend of mine he said that "fiction brings salvation to characters in stories that would otherwise have no salvation at all." His words strengthened the conviction of my manga spirit.
- Hiromu Arakawa
Collection: Character
Image of Robert Harling
...then we went skinny dippin' and did things that frighten the fish... Character, Shelby Eatonton, from the movie, Steel Magnolias.
- Robert Harling
Collection: Character
Image of Elizabeth Moon
In a novel, I could submerge my ego in a characters and let his perceptions take over.
- Elizabeth Moon
Collection: Character
Image of Akhenaton
Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.
- Akhenaton
Collection: Character
Image of Akhenaton
Be upright in thy whole life; be content in all its changes;so shalt thou make thy profit out of all occurrences; so shall everything that happeneth unto thee be the source of praise
- Akhenaton
Collection: Character
Image of Akhenaton
Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou.
- Akhenaton
Collection: Character
Image of Jonathan Maberry
I’m not sure I could trust a man who would bypass an Oreo in favor of vanilla wafers. It’s a fundamental character flaw, possibly a sign of true evil.
- Jonathan Maberry
Collection: Character
Image of Anna Deavere Smith
You've heard that old expression from Shakespeare, 'Just speak the speech'? The words themselves will take you to the reality of the character. And so this led me to interview people.
- Anna Deavere Smith
Collection: Character
Image of Steven Soderbergh
I'm probably more character-driven than plot-driven. It's rare for me to attach myself to an idea for a story.
- Steven Soderbergh
Collection: Character
Image of Steven Soderbergh
"A meteor hits planet Earth" - that's a story idea but that doesn't give me any indication of what the character is.
- Steven Soderbergh
Collection: Character
Image of Liam Neeson
Northern Ireland is the world’s best kept secret, both in the character of its people and its scenery.
- Liam Neeson
Collection: Character
Image of Amy Waldman
As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get beneath the surface, re-questioning a source to find the facts. But these processes aren't so different.
- Amy Waldman
Collection: Character
Image of Alexander Skarsgard
I'm an actor and I love to find new collaborations and new characters where I can grow as an actor and human being.
- Alexander Skarsgard
Collection: Character
Image of Alexander Skarsgard
Whether I'm interested [in something] or not, step one is read the script and figure out if a character is someone I'd want to explore or not.
- Alexander Skarsgard
Collection: Character
Image of Florence Nightingale
Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. For the greatest things grow by God's Law out of the smallest. But to live your life you must discipline it. You must not fritter it away in "fair purpose, erring act, inconstant will" but make your thoughts, your acts, all work to the same end and that end, not self but God. That is what we call character.
- Florence Nightingale
Collection: Character
Image of Lance Morrow
Never try to wear a hat that has more character than you do.
- Lance Morrow
Collection: Character
Image of George Ade
Adversity often hatches out the true nobility of character.
- George Ade
Collection: Character
Image of Laura Moriarty
I learned a lot of details about 1920s clothes, cars, kitchen appliances, and food. I had a character eating peanut butter in one scene until I learned that peanut butter wasn't commercially packaged and sold until 1924.
- Laura Moriarty
Collection: Character
Image of Nora Roberts
Anyone that has character leaves a mark on another. Would you like to leave the world without making a ripple?
- Nora Roberts
Collection: Character
Image of James N. Frey
To set a forest on fire, you light a match. To set a character on fire, you put him in conflict.
- James N. Frey
Collection: Character
Image of James N. Frey
Fiction writers come up with some interesting metaphors when speaking of plot. Some say the plot is the highway and the characters are the automobiles. Others talk about stories that are "plot-driven," as if the plot were neither the highway nor the automobile, but the chauffeur. Others seem to have plot phobia and say they never plot. Still others turn up their noses at the very notion, as if there's something artificial, fraudulent, contrived.
- James N. Frey
Collection: Character
Image of Elijah Wood
I'm always intrigued by new challenges and things that I've never done before and new experiences. It sounds so simple, but the primary interest is just something that's good and instills within me some kind of gut feeling that feels like something that I'm passionate and excited about, and there can be multiple variables that can instill that. It can be simply a filmmaker, it can just be a character, it can just be the script, or a combination of all those things. But, I'm always just looking to do things that I've never done before, primarily.
- Elijah Wood
Collection: Character
Image of Elijah Wood
Sometimes my interest in working on a film is not always dictated specifically by the character. Sometimes it's simply about wanting to be a part of a vision that I love, or a script that I love. I find exciting and gratifying.
- Elijah Wood
Collection: Character
Image of Billy Bob Thornton
Usually when you're playing a character, you think a lot about their backstory.
- Billy Bob Thornton
Collection: Character
Image of Billy Bob Thornton
Anytime you get a chance to play some extreme character, in any direction, it's always a great blessing.
- Billy Bob Thornton
Collection: Character
Image of Susanna Clarke
It would need someone very remarkable to recover your name, Stephen, someone of rare perspicacity, with extraordinary talents and incomparable nobility of character. Me, in fact.
- Susanna Clarke
Collection: Character
Image of Jonathan Nolan
For me, the attraction of TV is that you continue to get to tell those stories and refine those characters. The other thing is that TV, in the last years, got really, really, really good.
- Jonathan Nolan
Collection: Character
Image of Jonathan Nolan
Television is very different than working on film. With films, you get to develop a set of characters, and then, at the end of the film, you have to throw them away.
- Jonathan Nolan
Collection: Character
Image of Dennis Quaid
I am very interest in the human condition. That is what I love about acting. I like studying different people and their psychosis. I like discovering what makes them tick. I always find that with any character I play. I need to find out what makes them tick.
- Dennis Quaid
Collection: Character