Top 100 Best Character Quotes
#1. I find that a lot of my best character stuff and ideas come unwittingly from novels. In scripts, it's a lot about the outward signs of whatever's happening - you have the end result. Whereas in a novel you get a buildup of the whys and wherefores, and you're let into the backstory.
Alison Pill
#2. I'm always open to not necessarily to do leading roles because I want to do roles that are the best, character role. And sometimes, it's not going to be a leading role. It's going to be a smaller, supporting role. So really, I'm open to doing anything.
Josh Hutcherson
#3. I'm not too picky about guitars. I love to collect them, mostly oddballs, but I'm not married to any brand or model. Whatever guitar has the best character for the song is the one I want to use, because if you've got a style, you're going to sound like yourself no matter what guitar you play.
Dan Auerbach
#4. Most of the time when you see a movie, the best character in the movie is not "the guy," it's the guy next to the guy.
Anthony Mackie
#5. My job as an actor is to serve the script. If I'm looking at it as to see what the best character is, then it's not really looking at the big picture.
Frank Grillo
#6. I'm a huge fan of BioWare games. I think they do some of the best character-building. I mean, I have a relationship with Thane from 'Mass Effect' that is as vivid as any crush that I've had on a TV-show character.
Felicia Day
#7. Holden Caulfield is the best character in literature, period.
Josh Hutcherson
#8. Like De Niro. He's one of the best character actors we have ever had.
Vincent D'Onofrio
#9. IF" - I lie I am going to add the best features... the peoplea around = features will be taken to build the best character, then I am going to stick on the lie. This is the thingy which helps us to get out of...
Deyth Banger
#10. Crime fiction makes money. It may be harder for writers to get published, but crime is doing better than most of what we like to call CanLit. It's elementary, plot-driven, character-rich story-telling at its best.
Linwood Barclay
#11. We have an obligation to ourselves to foster the environment that allows for our self-actualization. Rather than my gifts serving me, I must serve them. I want to be a steward of the best aspects of my character and assist them in their fulfillment through proper discipline and habits.
Chris Matakas
#12. Education lays hold of what is best in a person, but character lays hold of what is worse. It takes hold of a failing and by very skillful manipulation and training turns it into a perfection.
Fulton J. Sheen
#13. He's very competitive and knows what he wants. He has developed toughness in character and that is what is needed for Indian cricket. Ganguly has proved to be one of the best captains. He has now acquired great leadership qualities.
Steve Waugh
#14. And from my character's point-of-view in Ravenous, he had been collected by Robert Carlyle's character, he had become infected by this ravenous, cannibalistic power, and he was making the best of it.
Jeffrey Jones
#15. Of the many qualities I adore about Melissa McCarthy as a comedian and as a dramatic actor, the best is how fully she gives herself to every character she plays.
Lisa Schwarzbaum
#16. There are a million little things, but one of the best ways to get to know characters is to just put them in situations and see what they say.
Greta Gerwig
#17. The highest and best work of imagination is the marvelous transformation that it works in character. Imagine that you are one with the principal of good, and you will become truly good.
Charles Fillmore
#18. Our best moral stories don't tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed to extrapolate the moral meaning from the story. We're not supposed to have it handed to us.
Jonathan D. Fitzgerald
#19. It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#20. You know, I've always wrote my best stuff when it takes me hardly any time at all. Actually I wrote ... this is actually a really funny story ... 'Ghost Of Vincent Price', I've been wanting to write a song about Vincent Price coz he's one of my favorite characters of all time.
Wednesday 13
#21. It is a rare American who does not have some story about how music has made our lives richer and more interesting, how it has changed our moods, brought out the best in our character and even sometimes helped us earn a living.
Lamar Alexander
#22. Confidence is a pencil best sharpened with paper.
Kale Burton
#23. We are poor in character when we think getting by is a substitute for doing our best.
Marvin J. Ashton
#24. There was a best-selling book in the late '60s and '70s called 'The Adventurers' by Harold Robbins. The lead character's name was Dax. Anyone that's roughly my age that's named Dax is named from that book.
Dax Shepard
#25. I was shocked by the reaction I got for Bleak House. It was very intensive but one of the best jobs of my life. It was a chance to play a character that grows and develops and I was very enmeshed in it. But I didn't realise how stylish it was and how much people would love it.
Anna Maxwell Martin
#26. The actions of our closest friends say a lot about our character - what we overlook, what we contribute to and what is important to us when the world doesn't take notice.
Shannon L. Alder
#27. The preparation for building a series of thrillers based on a single character is kind of like the preparation for becoming a parent: The best part is the idea - wink, wink.
Harlan Coben
#28. No one goes through life thinking that they're the best friend of the lead character.
Laura Carmichael
#29. Neurosis can be understood best as the battle between tendencies within an individual; deep character analysis leads, if successful, to the progressive solution.
Erich Fromm
#30. My character's kind of grown up with Katniss. The beginning of the story, they're more or less brother and sister than anything. They're best friends. They've been keeping each other alive. It's a little frustrating, for the character. As the character, not as me.
Liam Hemsworth
#31. Virtues are the internal qualities that allow us to be our best selves and enable us to lead complete and fulfilling lives.
Jonathan V. Last
#32. It is in the character of very few people to honour a prosperous friend without envy, and these very few people tend to become best friends.
Ruwayda Mustafah Rabar
#33. It's kind of ironic that my character is a doctor who acts very gay with his best friend. I don't see how gays could ever be doctors, they spend too much time whining about everything. Just get off your soapbox and go back to designing floral arrangements
Zach Braff
#34. Now must we sing and sing the best we can,
But first you must be told your character:
Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.
William Butler Yeats
#35. It's hard to really get that excited about movies. Think about it like this: how many good comedy movies come out a year? Maybe one or two? And then, in those movies, what are the chances that there's a character that I'm the best fit to play? It's really small!
Aziz Ansari
#36. The beauty of the character is that it's like camouflage. It's the best costume ever. I rarely get recognized as Pornstache when I'm out in public. Most people recognize me as the Law & Order guy, when I'm out in public.
Pablo Schreiber
#37. He was some kind of a man... What does it matter what you say about people?"
-- Marlene Dietrich's character in Touch Of Evil, originally written by Whit Masterson as Badge Of Evil. One of the best closing sequences you'll see in classical Hollywood
Whit Masterson
#38. Try to distill the character of your subject. Understand how he moves, thinks, acts. It's difficult to put into words. Consider each drawing as a problem that did not exist before, and then try to solve that problem to the best of your ability. That i what caricature is all about
Al Hirschfeld
#39. Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare.
Henry James
#40. I think that the best characters are the ones who both manage to be attractive and repulsive at the same time.
Nicolas Cage
#41. Charity should be self-sustainable. That is, it should create more wealth rather than perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence. In this sense, the best form of charity would be providing quality education for children and more importantly, building a good character in them.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
#42. I have always had the deepest respect for Bill Nicholson as a person and as a manager. The Spurs boss is an honest Yorkshireman and you will go a long way before finding a straighter character than that. Bill has never wavered in his determination to give White Hart Lane fans the best.
Bill Shankly
#43. I tend to write about towns because that's what I remember best. You can put a boundary on the number of characters you insert into a small town. I tend to create a lot of characters, so this is a sort of restraint on the character building I do for a novel.
Tom Drury
#44. Speaking of Twitter, I don't even know if I composed a blog entry in 2009, as I was too busy parceling my every thought into cute 140-character sound bites. I used to only worry about being pithy for a living; now some of my best lines are wasted on a free app!
Diablo Cody
#45. If you're gonna let the character be the story, you better set a tone that allows the actors to do the best work they can do.
Leonardo DiCaprio
#46. Character is BUILT by repeatedly choosing the best over the easiest.
Casey Treat
#47. I've enjoyed working on the TV series that I've worked on, in particular something like 'The Wire,' where there was so much time to tell the story and develop a character. I learned from that that it's best not to lay all your cards on the table straight away.
Aidan Gillen
#49. I'm not sure what they mean by "revenge is a dish best served cold." But I do know this - nobody's ever satisfied with a single helping.
- Heman Lindon, McPherson, Kansas ( a character in Heels Over Head )
Clay G. Small
#50. I never pick a film based on the genre; I choose the characters I play. I will think it through thoroughly - whether I am the best person to play the character, able to excel in it and match with the other characters.
Rain
#51. I always think change is important in a character. The most dynamic choices that you can make for a character are always the best ones.
Peter Sarsgaard
#52. Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.
Henry David Thoreau
#54. 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' ends with the spaceship lands and Richard Dreyfuss' character best on, but a bunch of pilots and sailors from the 1940s get off. You kind of wanted to know what happened next.
Jonathan Nolan
#55. Jay Lethal doing that Black Machsimo character, as good as that was, it was fantastic and so entertaining. But now Jay Lethal has turned himself into this very formidable, dominant world champion, who is having some of the best matches in the entire world. So it's really cool.
Adam Cole
#56. The contemporary crime novel is, at its best, a novel of character. That's where the suspense comes from.
Val McDermid
#57. I think the greatest of all human virtues is loyalty. It embraces all the best of the human character: courage, faith, love and charity.
Douglas Bader
#58. You can't tell an audience to like a character. And I think the best way to get the audience on someone's side is to embarrass them.
Anna Kendrick
#59. I considered several names, but Titania, a character from Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream', was best able to portray the image I wanted for what is a fantastically elegant and sexy yacht.
John Caudwell
#61. Truth needs wisdom's guidance. Wisdom prevents a hard truth from getting the best of you when an imperfect character brings out the worst in you.
Stella Payton
#62. One of the best things about reading comic books, when you're a kid or an adult, is watching the characters cross-over. What happens in one book affects the other, and these shows are so tightly knit that it feels like one giant show.
Andrew Kreisberg
#63. Keep integrity and your work ethics intact. So what if that means working a little harder; an honorable character is your best calling card, and that's something anyone can have!
Kathy Ireland
#64. Character is the line in the sand between the worst of the good people and the best of the bad ones
Johnny Flora
#65. I have learned a great deal in my life, and DeMolay helped me to learn that character and integrity should be cornerstones in your life. As a Senior DeMolay, as a father, the best advice I could ever give would be to take the high road in life, and you will be able to build trusting relationships.
Larry Wilcox
#66. We've all read, I'm sure, a Superman book where we didn't really feel like we knew the character. Where the writer, often with the best of intentions, has tried put a personal stamp on the character, whether it be to try and make him more current, or cool, or have a broader appeal, etc.
Gary Frank
#67. When you're telling a story, the best stories, every character has an arc. Every one. And that arc is usually about finding yourself, or about at least finding something about yourself that you didn't know.
Roy Conli
#68. Comedy historians take note: this Gottfried character doesn't have the best eye for detail - and, for a Jew, he doesn't have the best eye for retail, either.
Gilbert Gottfried
#69. Home is the first and most important school of character. It is there that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst; for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only with life.
Samuel Smiles
#70. That's one of the best things about characters like Indiana Jones. I mean, he's funny. He's done really wicked things.
Rhys Darby
#71. Conflict, which rouses up the best and highest powers in some characters, in others not only jars the whole being, but paralyzes the faculties.
Anna Brownell Jameson
#72. The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it
D.L. Moody
#73. You have to play the character in the best way you know how and do what you need to do in order to bring that character to life and not worry about the millions of people that you may be disappointing!
Emma Stone
#74. Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
Samuel Johnson
#75. There is no better test of character than when you're tossed into crisis. That's when we see one's true colors shine through. So I try my best to make my characters personally involved in the plot, in a way that stresses them and tests them.
Tess Gerritsen
#76. It's my chance to challenge myself to the fullest, which is one of the great joys about my job ... I love it when a character requires me to look less than my red-carpet best. It's more fun playing a character that requires you to look like dog s - t.
Kate Winslet
#77. Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#78. I once made a solemn vow that I could not keep... I am from this world. Even with all its failures and suffering it is still worthy of my best efforts... and wishing it was otherwise does not make it so." Eiij'lam told the king.
K. Farrell St. Germain
#79. But nothing external to God can possibly constrain him. If he chooses to restore a broken universe, it is because he "wants" to, because, for example, he loves it and wants the best for it. But he is free to do as he wills, and his character (Who He Is) controls his will.
James W. Sire
#80. The best of all kinds of movies are character-driven, and I definitely don't want to lose sight of why Derek and I started to write movies together in the first place.
Colin Trevorrow
#81. Every quirky girl doesn't have to be the best-friend character. It's a very limiting and self-fulfilling prophecy. People only write things that will get green-lit, so they write to those stereotypes.
Felicia Day
#82. You seem to think that everyone can save money if they have the character to do it. As a matter of fact, there are innumerable people who have a wide choice between saving and giving their children the best possible opportunities. The decision is usually in favor of the children.
Eleanor Roosevelt
#83. Journalists often ask me: "Aren't you sorry that after all the work you've done, you're best known as Magneto and Gandalf?" But that's what I've always wanted - not to be known as myself. I want to draw attention to the characters.
Ian McKellen
#84. The doctor used to tell me that every person about to die becomes a music box playing the melody that best describes his life, his character, and his hopes. For some, it's a popular waltz; for others, a march.
Patrick Modiano
#85. What people say about others' behavior or character is not always true, Just Proffer it to your best judgement.
Mohith Agadi
#86. All great writers have, of course, an atmosphere in which they seem most at their ease and at their best; a mood of the general mind which they interpret and indeed almost discover, so that we come to read them rather for that than for any story or character or scene of seperate excellence.
Virginia Woolf
#87. I love the part of Hector as it takes me back to playing eccentric parts. He is a funny character, which is fine by me as I've been playing for laughs for decades now! It's lovely to get a laugh; it's the best thing in the world!
Richard Briers
#88. [Revealing character] can't be done by pushing the person into position or arranging his head at a certain angle. It must be accomplished by provoking the victim, amusing him with jokes, lulling him with silence, or asking impertinent questions which his best friend would be afraid to voice.
Philippe Halsman
#89. In horror, character development is often pushed aside in favor of the shock value. The best genre movies to me are movies like The Shining. You had a connection to the characters in that film.
Joshua Leonard
#90. Success is the best builder of character.
Adolph Rupp
#91. In all the characters I play, not matter how, it's like as if there is something within me that's released. I also show my best ability and put in my best efforts.
Joo Won
#92. The director's job is to know what emotional statement he wants a character to convey in his scene or his line, and to exercise taste and judgment in helping the actor give his best possible performance.
Stanley Kubrick
#93. The hardest thing for me to do, and the best thing I've done and learned as an actor is to sacrifice being funny in certain circumstances in order to do something that makes sense for the story or the character, or emotionally.
Jonah Hill
#94. The premise of 'Deadline' forced me to go against my own grain with a character determined to find all that is valuable in that time. I believe this is a story about redemption; how, even with the best intentions, it's sometimes found and sometimes not.
Chris Crutcher
#96. As nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own, too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches!
William Makepeace Thackeray
#97. ( ... )we all recognize a likeness of Shakespeare the instant we see one, and yet we don't really know what he looked like. It is like this with nearly every aspect of his life and character: He is at once the best known and least known of figures.
Bill Bryson
#98. The best characters are always wretchedly flawed
Danai Gurira
#99. Thierry is the best striker in the world. By far he's the best in the world. Thierry doesn't just score goals. Even when he's not having a good day he can make an important pass. He is a strong character. If things go wrong, he bounces straight back. His effect on the club is very big.
Patrick Vieira
#100. Directly above them, framed in the doorway from the Brain Room, stood Albus Dumbledore, his wand aloft, his face white and furious. Harry felt a kind of electric charge surge through every particle of his body - they were saved.
J.K. Rowling
