Top 100 Character No Quotes
#1. There are persons who seem to have overcome obstacles and by character and perseverance to have risen to the top. But we have no record of the numbers of able persons who fall by the wayside, persons who, with enough encouragement and opportunity, might make great contributions.
Mary Barnett Gilson
#2. Newman cast a despairing glance at his small store of fuel, but, not having the courage to say no-a word which in all his life he never had said at the right time, either to himself or anyone else-gave way to the proposed arrangement.
Charles Dickens
#4. Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.
Michael Gambon
#5. A person whose desires and impulses are his own - are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture - is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character ...
John Stuart Mill
#6. Put simply the novel stands between us and the hardening concept of statistical man. There is no other medium in which we can live for so long and so intimately with a character. That is the service a novel renders.
William Golding
#7. People realize that Salieri is not the man we saw in the Amadeus movie. That man had no talent. It was a great movie, but the Salieri character was a big fiction.
Cecilia Bartoli
#8. The union with Christ which produces no effect on heart and life is a mere formal union, which is worthless before God. The faith which has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils.
J.C. Ryle
#9. When I start, I have a feeling for the characters, and maybe the shape of the story. Sometimes I might even have the last sentence in mind. But, no book I've ever written has ever ended the way I thought it would. Characters disappear, others come forward. Once you start writing, everything changes.
Paul Auster
#10. A lot of the time I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in. I have that nerd factor in my character.
Bjork
#11. No matter what we say, entertainers are usually quite insecure, wobbly characters underneath, and maybe that bit of glory or that bit of expression or whatever it is compensates in some area.
Robert Plant
#12. If you have no enemies, you have no character.
Paul Newman
#13. I'll tell you how it happened. The phone rang. Paul, my agent, goes, 'Would you like to play Meryl Streep's?' I said, 'Yeeees! I'll do it, whatever it is.' He said, 'It's Mamma Mia!.' I said, 'Oh no, which character? The fat friend?
Julie Walters
#14. It is of very little use in trying to be dignified, if dignity is no part of your character.
Christian Nestell Bovee
#15. No matter how extreme things get, it still has that ring of truth about it that backs the characters - even though they're despicable and what they're doing isn't right you still care for their fate.
Andy Serkis
#16. Character in leadership is the most important balance for leadership. Without character, leaders have no safety. Leadership has no protection without character.
Myles Munroe
#17. The quiet life is by no means the greatest life. Some characters can only reach the highest standard of spirituality by the disturbings or displacings in the order of God's providence.
F.B. Meyer
#18. There is no longer beauty except in the struggle. No more masterpieces without an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault against the unknown forces in order to overcome them and prostrate them before men.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
#19. You want everyone to be a full character. No one is just evil, or very few people are, hopefully. They're characters, so you want to flush them out. You've got to show all sides of them. There is definitely an antagonistic relationship between guards and prisoners, and I do think it flares up.
Jenji Kohan
#20. There is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character.
Mindy Kaling
#21. Don't go so deep in yourself that you no longer exist for your partner and for the character and for the play.
Constantin Stanislavski
#22. While some of them acknowledge the obligation of natural morality in their mode of conducting their cases, and preserve their individual character as gentlemen, there are others who acknowledge no law, human or divine, but the law of Scotland.
George Combe
#23. The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That's how I feel now, no matter what you're doing.
David O. Russell
#24. I've just looked for ideas and great characters that I relate to and that I think I can offer something to the audience, and I no longer look at them as experiments or genre exercises at all.
Ron Howard
#25. The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.
Wilhelm Reich
#26. We need no fanciful teaching regarding the personality of God. What God desires us to know of Him is revealed in His word and His works. The beautiful things of nature reveal His character and His power as Creator.
Ellen G. White
#28. Artists with the lack of proper education and experience of working from life will copy whatever is visible on the photograph, without knowing what's underneath. As a result, instead of creating the in-depth and full of character portrait, they draw a mask with no soul.
Igor Babailov
#29. There is no masculine psychology in my cinema. There is only the resentments and desires of women. A man should not attempt to recognize himself in my male characters. On the other hand, he can find [in the films] a better understanding of women. And knowledge of the other is the highest goal.
Catherine Breillat
#30. There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball where everyone hides his real character, then reveals it by hiding
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#31. All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.
James Fenimore Cooper
#32. Perhaps there is no more important component of character than steadfast resolution.
Theodore Roosevelt
#33. I think it's such a risky thing doing interviews. I try to limit the amount of interviews that I do because no one is that interesting especially when you're not really saying anything. And I don't particularly want to be an character in society or whatever.
Robert Pattinson
#34. I think I enjoy playing human beings no matter the substance of their character.
Ezra Miller
#35. There is no better rule to try a doctrine by than the question, Is it merciful, or is it unmerciful? If its character is that of mercy, it has the image of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
Hosea Ballou
#36. There's no better way to become a disintegrated character than to be your own authority.
Henry Cloud
#37. Walking into a show when I was 16, at that time when it was the No. 1 hit show, and replacing a character comes with so many expectations. I felt a lot of pressure with that.
Sarah Chalke
#38. There was also no character arc. Change only comes when we face the difficulty of reality head-on. Fantasy changes nothing, which is why, once we're done fantasizing, it feels like a bankrupt story.
Donald Miller
#39. No one will be alive by the last book. In fact, they all die in the fifth. The sixth book will be just a thousand-page description of snow blowing across the graves ...
George R R Martin
#41. Then you are a poet?' she asked, fingering the flyer in her pocket.
'No not at all,' he waved his hand. 'I am merely a character in a poem.
Karen Tei Yamashita
#42. No one goes through life thinking that they're the best friend of the lead character.
Laura Carmichael
#43. I really think if you take away a character's obstacles then there's no comedy.
Kunal Nayyar
#44. No true Dharma Master behaves with rage, hate, ranting, self- importance. These are signs of mental instability, a character flaw. Never follow such a one as that.
Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
#45. Bitterness will make you sick. During [Madiba's] imprisonment they were forced to work in the limestone quarry. Chipping away for no reason. Bitterness is the same. You reduce your own character with such a mindless exercise of cultivating bitterness.
Zelda La Grange
#46. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.
Charlie Chaplin
#47. The measure of your character is not what you do when people are looking. It's what you do when you think no one is looking.
Jason Mraz
#48. I think it's always difficult no matter how similar your characters are to yourself to get into that mindset, because however much they are similar to you, they're not you.
Asa Butterfield
#49. From a timid shy girl I had become a woman of resolute character, who could no longer be frightened by the struggle with troubles.
Anna Dostoyevskaya
#50. I'm not doing a Mulder, there was no character reference-point. I think Mark Buchman shot it very David Fincher, but we did not know what the [X-Files] show was going to be.
David Giuntoli
#51. They have had great disputes among themselves, whether one chosen by them to be a priest would not be thereby qualified to do all the things that belong to that character, even though he had no authority derived from the Pope,
Thomas More
#52. Religious devotion is for the individual. Character is for all. There is no loss if there is no devotion. Everything is lost if there is no character.
Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
#53. I'll always be back to the stage. I have no doubt that the stage will always call me back. There will always be a character that no one else can play, and I'll be back to play it.
Tammy Blanchard
#54. Character is what we do when no one else is watching"
~R. Alan Woods [2012]
R. Alan Woods
#55. When we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code, but a character.
E. Stanley Jones
#56. A mysterious character of UFOs is that they are sighted only in the First World,' she said, 'and no alien conquest of Earth begins until the mayor of New York holds an emergency press conference. When Mars attacks, it attacks America.
Manu Joseph
#57. Why, a trick horse is kind of like an actor - no dignity, no character of his own.
John Steinbeck
#58. When I was on 'One Life to Live,' I always wanted to delve into my character, Layla, to find out why she was the black sheep of the family. I so wanted to have some edge. I have no idea why there was a reluctance to do that or why we so rarely see it.
Tika Sumpter
#59. I think every major character I've played was originally for an older woman. I have no idea what that says. I guess I'm mature for my age.
Natalie Zea
#60. The second kind are invited by bad character, and the problems such a person has then cannot be put right until he puts himself right. It is not something a proud man can do, because proud men see no wrongness in themselves.
John C. Wright
#61. Learning to trust God when He says "no" is a very important step in handling rejection. This is because God's character is not only seen in what He does, but in what He does not do.
Jamie Larbi
#62. Well, I think certain roles are chosen for us. The moment I read Pete Campbell I thought: I can do this, this is mine. And in Money, too. The truth is I turn down a lot of projects. If a character doesn't have some kind of internal struggle, it's no good for me.
Vincent Kartheiser
#63. The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot live without her, and resents any aspersions that strangers may cast on her character.
George Santayana
#64. No one knows his true character until he has run out of gas, purchased something on the installment plan and raised an adolescent.
Marcelene Cox
#65. I have no idea. I get involved because I think there's value in the project and because I love the character that is presented to me. I love the opportunity to examine a character, and to have him examine me, live inside me and move my hands. I love that. It's irresistible. It's a drug.
Donald Sutherland
#66. A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense.
Lawrence Lessig
#67. No one is born with good character; it's not a hereditary trait. And it isn't determined by a single noble act. Character is established by conscientious adherence to moral values, not by lofty rhetoric or good intentions.
Michael Josephson
#69. Its theme
the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters
was perhaps presumptuously large, but I make no apology for it.
Evelyn Waugh
#70. The only way of really finding out a man's true character is to play golf with him. In no other walk of life does the cloven hoof so quickly display itself.
P.G. Wodehouse
#72. Somehow I know that Nikki will never love me as much-no matter how much I improve my character.
Matthew Quick
#73. John Woo is a very nice and kind person; he gives almost no direction at all, trusting me to come up with the character. But when I think of him, I think of explosions!
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai
#74. If character is what you do when no one is watching, then sportsmanship is that conduct with everybody watching.
Bob Ley
#75. Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day.
Ronald Reagan
#76. When you're doing an out-and-out comedy, the notion of preparing for a character - I hope I don't reveal too much of myself here - but, uh, no, I'm not doing anything.
Will Ferrell
#77. I write poems about relationships, love relationships, and I'm not able to do that all the time. I could go two years without writing poems, and then write a dozen. Having a novel to work on, with the intricate puzzle of character and plot to work out, is satisfying for the time there is no poetry.
May Sarton
#78. I think I've learnt that there is no character so strange that you haven't shared their experience in some small way.
Mark Haddon
#79. You are the spokesman for your character, you put on his case. Are you going to win or lose? There'll be no drama if you look like a loser at the outset.
Clive Swift
#80. He then proceeded to shout at Alpha and Beta, a sign that he was in a genuine good mood. They took it as calmly as ever, in spite of the fact that he accused them of things I'm sure no donkey has ever willingly done, especially not Beta, who possessed impeccable moral character.
Patrick Rothfuss
#81. It is hard to say which is the greatest fool: he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.
Lord Chesterfield
#82. God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech.
Quintilian
#83. When fear no longer takes hold, the possibilities are endless.
Tom Althouse
#84. I cried because nineteen years of living could leave behind no more lasting memorial than a few carefully adjusted impressions of a character in a handful of mortal minds.
Valerie Fitzgerald
#85. Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people's in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack.
Flannery O'Connor
#86. People keep asking me, 'What evil lurks in you to play such bad characters?' There is no evil in me, I just wear tight underwear.
Dennis Hopper
#87. Sometimes we meet a character and we fall so hopelessly in love with him or her that we want to be that character, no matter how tough they have it, no matter how they might mess things up.
Sherman Alexie
#88. Writing is really freeing because it's the only part of the process where it's just you and the characters and you are by yourself in a room and you can just hash it out. There are no limitations.
Dee Rees
#89. The poetics of the oppressed is essentially the poetics of liberation: the spectator no longer delegates power to the characters either to think or to act in his place. The spectator frees himself; he thinks and acts for himself! Theatre is action!
Augusto Boal
#90. There is no glory in war, yet from the blackness of its history, there emerge vivid colours of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends.
Silvia Cartwright
#91. Reputation is what people expect us to do next. It's their expectation of the quality and character of the next thing we produce or say or do.
We control our actions (even when it feels like we don't) and our actions over time (especially when we think no one is looking) earn our reputation.
Seth Godin
#92. Of course he'll bring no money. Nor never will. He's not the type to--accumulate. But it's a good name to have. And he's becoming a personality in the county. One never knows quite why this happens, eh? Not so much what a man does. More a matter of character.
Winston Graham
#93. If you do something that is not gags and punchlines and is character-based, where there are no jokes as such, then it all has to come from a place of truth, and I love that - I love nothing more than getting very serious about my comedy.
Darren Boyd
#94. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it.
Og Mandino
#95. No-one knows what I do in my private, spare time, so I don't see why anyone would assume I'm celibate or somehow turning into a Garboesque character.
George Harrison
#96. I had no idea Savage Season was the beginning of a series. I wrote the second one about three years later. The character of Hap wouldn't stop talking to me, and then there was a third, and over the years nine novels and a collection of stories and some uncollected stories.
Joe R. Lansdale
#97. When you make a mistake. You can do a little song and dance, put on a little show and have everyone laugh it off.
Or you can own it, and next time show everyone how great you are. While silencing your critiques.
Personally speaking... I don't help no one make a fool out of you.
Vincent Edwards
#98. We live in an age fit for heroes. No time has ever offered such perils or prizes ... The test of this century will be whether man confuses the growth of wealth and power with the growth of spirit and character.
Vince Lombardi
#99. You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.
Julie Benz
#100. All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely passive, and over which the individual will and character have no control.
Chauncey Wright
