Top 100 Character Not Quotes
#1. Once you have love as a motivator in a story, your character is free to do anything. Once you say the character is in love, he can do the craziest thing that nobody would do who's not in love. Once you're in love, you have that excuse to go and do whatever you want.
Josh Hutcherson
#2. There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts. History reveals men's deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
#3. Part of the challenge of being a girl living in the 21st Century, looking back, the danger is to not judge your character by your own standards.
Zoe Kazan
#4. I prefer not to wink out from behind the character as myself, saying to the audience, "It's just me here, right, guys?" Peter Sellers is my model, and he didn't do that - he wore his character from head to toe.
Andy Daly
#5. I would not want to be a politician ... Let me tell you this: If I was campaigning, and I go against my opponent and he started attacking my character, and I leap over the table and choke him unconscious, would that help my campaign?
Chuck Norris
#6. Shields Green was not one to shrink from hardships or dangers. He was a man of few words, and his speech was singularly broken; but his courage and self-respect made him quite a dignified character.
Frederick Douglass
#7. That's sort of what I like about this character is that he's not the good guy, he's not truly the bad guy.
Nicholas Lea
#8. Religion of any form is a sacred matter. It involves the relation of the individual to some Being believed to be infinitely supreme. It involves not merely character and life here, but destiny hereafter, and as such is not to be spoken of lightly or flippantly.
David Josiah Brewer
#9. People that are brilliant and successful, we think they've just always been that way. That's not the case. Most of them have had some tough adversity in their life. It's prepared them. I've never felt like you could develop character without adversity.
Bobby Bowden
#10. I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, people will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#11. I doubt that I could create a character I loathed simply because when a character takes life, it is impossible not to be a little amazed by the phenomenon, and to find that the amazement has something of the quality of delight.
Marilynne Robinson
#12. 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
#13. If you ask any ordinary reader which of Dickens's proletarian characters he can remember, the three he is almost certain to mention are Bill Sykes, Sam Weller and Mrs. Gamp. A burglar, a valet and a drunken midwife-not exactly a representative cross-section of the English working class.
George Orwell
#14. There are black men who are madly in love with white women. God bless them, if that's what works for them. I just hope that we can strike a balance that portrays black folks and the black family in a light that's not extreme. Those are the types of characters that I find myself attracted to.
Nia Long
#15. 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
#16. When introducing a character, you're usually better off sticking with broad strokes. The important thing at that point is not what color hair someone has or how tall they are, but rather, what kind of person they are.
Jason Black
#17. Telling the truth ... is not solely a matter of moral character; it is also a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#18. It is what we are forced to do that forms our character, not what we do of our own free will.
Alberto Moravia
#19. Good character is more important than wealth, good looks, popularity and even education. These things do not guarantee happiness and often they become obstacles to developing good character.
Michael Josephson
#20. You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.
Norman Douglas
#21. All of us have schnozzles ... if not in our faces, then in our character, minds or habits. When we admit our schnozzles, instead of defending them, we begin to laugh, and the world laughs with us.
Jimmy Durante
#22. In afternoon if you close eyes it's doesn't mean there is dark outside and if you avoid or do not want see your wrong deeds and wrong character it's doesn't mean all Good in you
Mohammed Zaki Ansari
#23. It is not with a rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's character, and attain to perfect saintship; but step by step, foot by foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to heaven.
Thomas Guthrie
#24. Oftentimes what happens is that the writer understands one character, but they don't understand the other one, and the other one ends up not being written as well.
Jennifer Beals
#25. What makes a strong female character is a character who has weaknesses, who has flaws, who is maybe not immediately likable, but eventually relatable.
Tavi Gevinson
#26. Every character is a part of you and a part of the character that you are going to evolve into that you are not yet.
Angelina Jolie
#27. 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
#28. I'm not named after the character,' she said. 'I'm named after the entire opera.
Julie Orringer
#29. You're thoughtful, Barbara, but you're not open. You're passionate, but you're hard. You're a good, decent, funny, wonderful woman, and I love you, but you're a pain in the ass.
Tracy Letts
#30. Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one's balance in spite of them.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#31. Reason must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witness to answer questions which he has himself formulated.
Immanuel Kant
#32. I think if you play characters, it's very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character.
Cillian Murphy
#33. Be not content with the common place in character anymore than with the commonplace in ambition or intellectual attainment. Do not expect that you will make any lasting or very strong impression on the world through intellectual power without the use of an equal amount of conscience and heart.
William Jewett Tucker
#34. Not only thinking and feeling are determined by man's character structure but also his actions.
Erich Fromm
#35. We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something.
Oswald Chambers
#36. I prefer to doubt everything. Such a disposition does not preclude a resolute character. On the contrary, as far as I am concerned, I always advance more boldly when I don't know what is waiting me for me. After all, nothing worse than death can happen-and death you can't escape!
Mikhail Lermontov
#37. My dad says that when I was two or three I used to go out dressed as a different character every day. I remember thinking it was perfectly normal to wear different coloured shoes and carry a pink umbrella. But now I've got a goddaughter of that age; I realise it's not normal at all.
Alice Eve
#38. Your family is real, but mine isn't? Real people with real feelings, but my family isn't real to you. You think. I'm a character. A story. Those women you talk about. Not real people to you. Stupid women. I'm real. I'm as real as you are. My family is real like your family.
Bryn Greenwood
#39. 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
#40. It is not the words or the actions you should trust, rather the pattern.
Shannon L. Alder
#41. My thing was always more character-driven comedies, not sketch comedy - not that there's not room for both or one isn't enjoyable, just my personal taste, I like movies that comedy comes from out of flaws of people, things that are uncomfortable, out of tragedy.
Vince Vaughn
#42. In fact, most deaths are not tragic. Few people die because of a flaw in character, which is the essential element of tragedy. They just die.
John Chancellor
#43. Survivor" is not a label you choose for yourself.
Harry Smith
#44. With big, emotional roles it's very easy, especially if you've grown up in the American school of acting, to exploit your own pain. You have to be careful about that, because 9 times out of 10, your pain is not appropriate to the character.
Laura Linney
#45. It is the task of several months and it is a fact that a girl, either while rehearsing or actually playing, may be training for some character or feature in some future production not yet definitely fixed even in my own mind.
Florenz Ziegfeld
#46. I don't want to play a superhero. Drogo may not be Superman, but it is a phenomenal role. I didn't want to get typecast. Drogo is an exceptional character. Conan is iconic. Whether it does good or not, you just try to elevate it to the next level.
Jason Momoa
#47. Characters in animation do not cheat. They do not let you go for another. Animation is on certain points, very close to the pornography industry. All your physical needs are met. You can watch different animations and find anything you desire.
Hideaki Anno
#48. Although just being employed as an actor is a big thing, I'm not sure I'd be satisfied playing the same character for 30 years; it's not why I want to do this for a living.
Jamie Dornan
#49. lost a great innocence when I understood that I and my mind were not going to be on good terms for the rest of my life. I can't tell you how tired I am of character-building experiences. But I treasure this part of me; whoever loves me loves me with this in it.
Kay Redfield Jamison
#50. High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
Christopher Hitchens
#51. Embracing a life content with fewer possessions has modeled for them the important truths that personal belongings are not the key to happiness, that security is found in their character, and that the pursuit of happiness runs a different road than the pursuit of possessions.
Joshua Becker
#52. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait.
Gavin De Becker
#53. 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
#54. [I]n speaking about someone's character, we do not say that he is wise or comprehending, but that he is gentle or moderate.
Aristotle.
#55. It's my only religion to work hard, and then I'm not under any pressure because I know I've done the work on the character.
Pierre Niney
#56. When I look at life I try to be as agnostic and unmetaphysical as possible. So I have to admit that, most probably, we do not have a fate. But I think that's something that draws us to novels - that the characters always have a fate. Even if it's a terrible fate, at least they have one.
Daniel Kehlmann
#57. I want a script to affect me in some way. I am usually drawn to character studies, scripts about real people and the world we live in not some fantasy.
Roger Deakins
#58. The opposite of success is not failure. Unsuccessful efforts are not failures unless they so discourage you that you abandon further efforts to achieve your goal. Even then, the venture or effort may be a failure but you are not. Failure is an event not a character trait.
Michael Josephson
#59. The outward is only the outside of that which is within. Men are not concealed under habits, but are revealed by them; they are their true clothes.
Henry David Thoreau
#60. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. There
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#61. When I said I would be the judge of your worth, I did not mean that I owned your life, Rowan Jun.
Garyn Kei
Tamara Henson
#62. There never has been a great and beautiful character, which has not become so by filling well the ordinary and smaller offices appointed of God.
Horace Bushnell
#63. Getting inside your character's head and letting the reader see the world through not just their eyes but their sensibility creates an intimacy that can't be duplicated in any other medium.
Stewart O'Nan
#64. I guess I'm the perfect young lead actress. I'm not Chloe Sevigny - I'm not really a character actress. Some actors have "character" faces.
Berenice Bejo
#65. The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.
Saul Bellow
#66. The most complicated character I have ever played - she has many, many, many layers that even I'm not fully aware of.
Evan Rachel Wood
#67. I have zero idea of what my involvement with 'The Lying Game' is going to be. I'm a character that may or may not be permanently involved.
Tyler Christopher
#68. True character stands the test of emergencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weakness from which the awakening is rude.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#69. It's weird, not to sound too actor but I think that any time you do a performance, you kind of take a little piece of that character, cause it's a part of you you're using.
Alia Shawkat
#70. Reputation is a reward, to be sure, but it is really the beginning, not the end of endeavor. It should not be the signal for a let-down, but rather, a reminder that the standards which won recognition can never again be lowered. From him who gives much - much is forever after expected.
Alvan Macauley
#72. My sister and I had jointly heard the narration of 'Revolver Rani' in Tigmanshu Dhulia's office. After hearing the narration, my sister was very scared and adamant that I should not do this film, as my character was twisted, neurotic, violent and abusive.
Kangana Ranaut
#73. I'm not much of a preparer. I think sometimes as an actor you need to go out and learn some skills, but in terms of preparation for understanding the character, it's all on the page, and if it's not on the page, you're in trouble.
William H. Macy
#74. 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
#75. Dialogue has to show not only something about the speaker that is its own revelation, but also maybe something about the speaker that he doesn't know but the other character does know.
Eudora Welty
#76. While you, the leader, can teach many things, character is not taught easily to adults who arrive at your desk lacking it. Be cautious about taking on reclamation projects regardless of the talent they may possess. Have the courage to make character count among the qualities you seek in others.
John Wooden
#77. Whenever I switch from one character to another, there's always a few days where I really struggle because I'm changing voices and I'm changing ways of looking at the world. I'm not just flicking a switch; it's harder process than that.
George R R Martin
#78. It's depend of the communication, I think it's very important to let the director make his own vision of the character, not making a studio movie. Look the Dark Knight it's totally the vision of Nolan.
Xavier Gens
#79. Good, honest, hardheaded character is a function of the home. If the proper seed is sown there and properly nourished for a few years, it will not be easy for that plant to be uprooted.
George Amos Dorsey
#80. We must learn to judge potential partners by the content of their character and the compatibility of temperament and life purpose, not by the chemical reaction of hormones and physical attraction, and not by the superficial value system of the European.
Nana Kwaku Opare
#81. 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
#83. You gave him an opportunity of showing greatness of character and he did not seize it. He will never forgive you for that.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#84. I wanted it to be a wonderful combination of being able to dance a little bit, not being especially good, but also playing a character who says the line, "I love to dance".
Mary Steenburgen
#85. If you don't drink coffee, I am suspicious of your character and will not invite you to my Italian lake home.
George Clooney
#86. An artist who wants to transpose a composition onto a larger canvas must conceive it over again in order to preserve its expression; he must alter its character and not just fill in the squares into which he has divided his canvas.
Henri Matisse
#87. I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot.
Emma Donoghue
#88. For it is not true, as some treatise-mongers lay down in their systems, of the probity of the speaker, that it contributes nothing to persuasion; but moral character nearly, I may say, carries with it the most sovereign efficacy in making credible.
Aristotle.
#89. Remember, a person's character is not only judged by the company he or she keeps but also by the company he or she avoids.
Shiv Khera
#90. The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#91. I'd love to do another 'Indiana Jones.' A character that has a history and a potential, kind of a rollicking good movie ride for the audience, Steven Spielberg as a director - what's not to like?
Harrison Ford
#92. When you're starting out as an actor, you keep raising the stakes. First, you just want to be a character who comes on stage and gets a laugh or two and exits. Just five minutes on a stage, not even Broadway. But every time you say your little prayer at night, you place more demands.
Charles Kimbrough
#93. The Sermon on the Mount is law, not grace, for it demands as the condition of blessingMt 5:3-9 that perfect character which grace, through divine power, creates Ga 5:22,23
Anonymous
#94. When I listen to my scene partners and listen to their breathing allows me to be connected to them in scenes. I am not trying to multi task, not trying to talk on the phone, but in my character.
Giancarlo Esposito
#95. It must be remembered that the Bush White House has a separate talent for character assassination that must not be confused with a talent for governance.
Richard Dreyfuss
#96. It is a strength of character to acknowledge our failings and our strong points, and it is a weakness of character not to remain in harmony with both the good and the bad that is within us.
Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...
#97. My character in 'Cocktail' was different from my personality. Homi Adajania took me to London, showed me how girls dress and behave there. I had not seen that kind of lifestyle before.
Deepika Padukone
#98. I'm not a fan of anybody music who I feel like a sucka. I don't listen to you. They play you in the club, you can have the #1 jam, but if I know your character, how can I listen to your music?
Gucci Mane
#99. 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
#100. Art is not so much talent as character ... it's what you are, the qualities of the person.
John Olsen
