Best 14098 quotes in «character quotes» category

Once you realize that it is impossible to capture the character of the various manifestations of nature by pictorial means, and that an interpretation based on imagination is equally erroneous, you will not find yourself facing a gaping void as you might have feared.

Once you're involved in the work, it's really just you and the characters and the words.

On consideration, it is not surprising that Darwin's finches should recognize their own kind primarily by beak characters. The beak is the only prominent specific distinction, and it features conspicuously both in attacking behaviour, when the birds face each other and grip beaks, and also in courtship, when food is passed from the beak of the male to the beak of the female. Hence though the beak differences are primarily correlated with differences in food, secondarily they serve as specific recognition marks, and the birds have evolved behaviour patterns to this end.

Once you uncover the history of this pattern and trace its roots, you will see that your reaction in the present moment is really a reaction from the past, a shadow character's attempt to protect you from reexperiencing an old emotional wound, which instead sabotages you in the present.

Once you've established where you are, you go to the character and elaborate on expressions and action.

One can feel the immense joy of Amy Hill Hearth's engagement in her first novel. It radiates through every scene and through every page. Sometimes, an exceptional writer finds an exceptional premise, and the result is a truly exceptional book. Such is the case with Miss Dreamsville...The writing is brilliant, especially the dialogue through which the characters are defined.

One cannot completely avoid this landmark character with large buildings such as these. But the city itself is also gigantic.

One cannot, without reflection, make some into bearers of goodness and others into miscreants, judging them by relative positive or negative criteria. These, like everything else, change according to historical circumstances, the character of a society, the time and subjective points of view.

One cannot run from a challenge without losing. To flee is signing a death warrant to dignity and character, and, having run, there is no return; one is a weakling forever. Meeting a challenge, though one may be defeated, gives strength, character, and a certain assurance that regardless of outcome, one will survive or go down fighting.

One day when I was working on a movie, I stayed at the beach a little too long, and they said, “You are going to ruin a whole day of shooting because you’re so dark. Two days ago you weren’t like this!” So I started putting that in the character; I made him suntanned all the time.

One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one's own life. I still feel surprised that such various substances can find shelter and nourishment in a poem. A poem in fact may be a sort of nourishing liquid, such as one uses to keep an amoeba alive. If prepared right, a poem can keep an image or a thought or insights on history or the psyche alive for years, as well as our desires and airy impulses.

One doesn't simply write about Lyndon Johnson. You get the Johnson treatment from beyond the grave - arm around you, nose to nose. I should admit that he also reminds me of my father, quite an overbearing and narcissistic character. And in some ways, he reminds me of myself. Another workaholic.

One day, I was running to the river. Along the way there was the most exquisite butterfly, a tiny little thing, on the pavement. I kind of jumped over it. And then two days later I woke up in the middle of the night with a character running, jumping over butterflies on the streets of Nairobi. After that, I followed the story. The story wrote itself.

One easy mistake to make with the first novel is to expand the short story. Some things are better as a story; you cannot dilute things into a novel. I think the first hundred pages of a novel are very important. That's where you set things up: the world, the characters. Once you've set that up, it'll be much easier.

...one exploiting sect, one people of leeches, one single devouring parasite closely and intimately bound together not only across national boundaries, but also across all divergences of political opinion ... [Jews have] that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principle traits of their national character

One gets started, and then, suddenly, one cannot remember what toothpaste they use . . . the moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.

One has to have the strength of character to say the time has come to move on... unless you are a king.

One has to be able to twist and change and distort characters, play with them like clay, so everything fits together. Real people don't permit you to do that.

One interesting feature of criticism is seen in the ease with which it discovers what Addison called the specific quality of an author. In Livy, it will be the manner of telling the story; in Sallust, personal identification with the character; in Tacitus, the analysis of the deed into its motive. If the same test be applied to painters, it will find the prominent faculty of Correggio to be manifested in harmony of effect; of Poussin, in the sentiment of his landscapes; and of Raffaelle, in the general comprehension of his subject.

One man in his time plays many parts.

[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] Her sweetness of character is even beyond her genius.

One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.

One man's priority is another man's extravagence.

One is apt to think of moral failure as due to weakness of character: more often it is due to an inadequate ideal.

One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't.

One must keep one's character. Earn a character first if you can, and if you can't, then assume one. From the code of morals I have been following and revising and revising for 72 years I remember one detail. All my life I have been honest - comparatively honest. I could never use money I had not made honestly - I could only lend it.

One must never comment as an actor, never show that a character is shallow or vindictive, but let that be conveyed. I mean, none of us thinks of ourselves as being vindictive or shallow - perhaps we should.

One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books.

One of my favorite things about the Kung Fu Panda 3 is the look of it. We never go for realism. I think a lot of time when people go for 3D that's the mistake. Because we're never going for full realism - for computer generated live action films like Avatar the goal is realism, to make the audience feel like they are seeing something that is real. Lord of the Rings had character design and environments to make it look real, whereas we aren't going for that, we are going for something that is theatrically, viscerally, and emotionally real.

One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.

One nourishes one's created characters with one's own substance: it's rather like the process of gestation. To give the character life, or to give him back life, it is of course necessary to fortify him by contributing something of one's own humanity, but it doesn't follow from that that the character is I, the writer, or that I am the character. The two entities remain distinct.

One of my career ambitions was fulfilled working with John [Hurt]. I loved his work long before I ever had the idea of being an actor, so I was nervous to meet him. I was like a fanboy, like that annoying character on 'Saturday Night Live'. I'm sitting there. 'Do you remember when you were in 'Midnight Express'? Remember that scene you were in?' And he doesn't disappoint.

One of my favorite cartoon characters is Snoopy. I love the way he sits and lies on his kennel and contemplates the great things of life.

One never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one can not remember what toothpaste they use; what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge; minor ones may be photographed.

One never wants to do anything that's going to break that 'sculpture of the character' that's been done so far, or make anything that's been done so far become illogical in any way, so you always want to try to connect when you're doing a series of films that has a continuous character.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that I just don't like it when characters do things that are funny to the writer, but you don't know why they're doing it and it doesn't make any sense.

One of my complaints with American TV characters is that they all have a particular schtick, a hook.

One of my favorite scenes in Fellini is the ecclesiastical fashion show in Roma, and the end of 8 ½, when all the characters in the life of Guido, Marcello Mastroianni, get together and do this grand procession. That was on my mind, especially at the 45th anniversary, when all those characters in Valentino's life returned to Rome. I kept watching that and saying, if only we can arrange that grand procession at the end...and it kind of happened.

One never gets to know a person's character better than by watching his behavior during decisive moments.... It is always only danger which forces the most deeply hidden strengths and abilities of a human being to come forth.

One of my favorite comics is Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers. They do such a wonderful job of showing you how the character of Maggie ages and really doesn't present that with any kind of judgment.

One of my favorite things about 'Star Trek' wasn't just the overt banter but the humor in that show about the relationships between the main characters and their reactions to the situations they would face; there was a lot of comedy in that show without ever breaking its reality.

One of my first jobs was in a soap opera, five days a week. And what I found is, although there are different directors coming in and different crews, you just lived in your character. It's the nature of the story, the ongoing story, and it can get deeper and deeper.

One of my standard - and fairly true - responses to the question as to how story ideas come to me is that story ideas only come to me for short stories. With longer fiction, it is a character (or characters) coming to visit, and I am then obliged to collaborate with him/her/it/them in creating the story.

One of my favourite kinds of movie is the American picaresque, in which the characters make their way across the country, learning about life against the gorgeous backdrops of that vast land.

One of our continuing myths was summed up in Huckleberry Finn: Our escape, what we think of as our escape, is that we can always light out for the territories. Well, we really can't, not anymore, but that's part of the American character - that belief that at any moment, I could just drop the coffee cup and disappear. And it makes for a different self-image and a different story, in a way.

One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.

One of my jobs as an actor, regardless of who I play - even if I'm playing a despicable character - is to make people think that that character could exist, that he's real, and the way to do that is to make him believable. He doesn't have to be likable or charming, but he just has to be believable. That is someone who I could see on a bus. That is someone who I could walk past in the street.

One of my first gigs was as a guest star, and I was supposed to be a big imposing character.

One of the beauties of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is the very delicate and strange relationship between the two main characters.

One of the best strengtheners of character and developers of stamina ... is to assume the part you wish to play; to assert stoutly the possession of whatever you lack.