Top 100 Quotes About Getting Out Of Character
#2. A novel I read when I was about 17 or 18 - 'The World According to Garp,' by John Irving - really made me want to become a writer. The character of Garp is a novelist, and at the time, the whole lifestyle of being a writer was hugely appealing to me.
John Niven
#3. My favorite kinds of stories are the ones that have these big crazy genre hijinks and then a real honest, meaty, emotional story where we're watching a character grapple with some real things.
Greg Pak
#4. 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
#5. The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.
Earl Warren
#6. The character's flaw will shape every other aspect of your book. The flaw is the engine that drives your entire book, from hooking your reader's interest to propelling the plot to its climax - so choose your flaw with care, and make it count.
Libbie Hawker
#7. 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.
#8. Like an actor who transforms into the character that they're playing, you can transform into yourself.
Leeza Gibbons
#9. In fact, the underlying principle of the baroque is the idea of transformation, of movement, and animals becoming man, and man becoming animals, and mythology. It was a way to inspire pre-Christian character.
Camille Henrot
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. Character - in things great and small - is indicated when a man (or person) pursues with sustained follow-through what he feels himself capable of doing.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#13. I think the key divide between the interactive media and the narrative media is the difficulty in opening up an empathic pathway between the gamer and the character, as differentiated from the audience and the characters in a movie or a television show.
Steven Spielberg
#14. Phonogram is the memory of a long period in my life through a surprisingly small filter. Those characters are basically the golem who accompanied me on that decade and a half.
Kieron Gillen
#15. I think the genre of comics sometimes overtakes the medium, and people assume that they are kind of frivolous. If you have a good, strong story teller, they can be as affecting as any character in literature. Period.
Chip Kidd
#16. When we read, even if the characters are tragic or sad or disturbing, these are our brothers and sisters in the human family.
Julia Alvarez
#17. 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
#18. The illusion of depth in a character is created simply by withholding information from an audience. A character will seem complex and intriguing only if we don't know the reasons why.
Eleanor Catton
#19. So much emotion can be brought in an animated film that's very hard to get in a live-action film. I haven't quite put my finger on why, but it might be because the characters can make facial expression that, if you made them in a movie, they'd call them corny.
Steve Martin
#20. The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men proceed from their needs, their passions, their characters and talents; and impresses us with the belief that such needs, passions and interests are the sole spring of actions.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
#21. That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood.
Alexander Pope
#22. I have quite a normal family and I'm bored with how normal my family is. I want to mess stuff up a bit. I chose the messed up characters because I find that that's acting. I want to explore emotions that you otherwise wouldn't be able to explore.
Chloe Grace Moretz
#23. There is something in the American character, traditionally, that yearns to see the status quo kicked in the ass.
Alec Cizak
#24. 'Firelight' is a beautiful story about a lot of young women. My character, Caroline, is a girl who has a bad boyfriend, and he ends up getting her locked up and incarcerated.
Q'orianka Kilcher
#25. An honest, sincerely stated compliment helps to build character; criticism destroys it.
Nathan Eldon Tanner
#27. 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
#28. As an actor I'm always interested in dialogue, the way the characters speak to each other. I also enjoy a bit of humor, especially when it's unexpected.
Michael Boatman
#29. 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
#30. The Story Core Every compelling story has the following five elements: 1) A character 2) The character wants something 3) But something prevents him from getting what he wants easily 4) So he struggles against that force 5) And either succeeds or fails
Libbie Hawker
#31. 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
#33. Fictional characters exist in only two places, neither of which is on the printed page. They exist, first, in the mind of the writer and, second, in the mind of the reader.
Maren Elwood
#34. Especially when you play a character for so many years, the character ends up reflecting a lot of who you are and I think I've changed a lot since then, but that represented a lot of who I was as a teenager.
Sara Gilbert
#36. My mom was such a strong character. I don't want to say she was like a man, but she was tough.
Lance Armstrong
#37. I think that I have this core group of fans that fell in love with the character I played on Buffy and now they're following me to everything I do. They're very dedicated and loyal. I'm very lucky.
Amber Benson
#38. Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.
David Sedaris
#39. Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#40. I was a Sedgewick without the smarts. It infused its way into me and I feel like it formed my character in a big way because of what I was exposed to.
Rob Morrow
#41. Laws ... proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine.
Thomas Jefferson
#42. 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
#43. I always considered myself as a character actor. I always try to be versatile to show different sides of human experience.
Robert Duvall
#44. The harsh light above them caught her face, and Sean could see what she'd look like when she was much older - a handsome woman, scarred by wisdom she never asked for.
Dennis Lehane
#45. Each director is different. Clint Eastwood and Chris Nolan are completely different, and I need to adjust to the story and character and the director and just my duty as an actor.
Ken Watanabe
#46. I want to read about a character doing something fairly quiet where I can picture who the character is, and what their attitude towards the world is - which I'm a lot more interested in than what they do under the pressure of a gunfight.
Samuel R. Delany
#47. I find with television, you have to play personality, whereas onstage, everyone talks about 'the character,' and what you do. It's a very different thing, because stage is much bigger, but on television, for things to come across to the public, I think you have to play a bit of your personality.
John Barrowman
#48. She was spontaneous. Even in her cleverness. She never looked at people; people looked at her. It was her reward for being natural.
Anuradha Bhattacharyya
#49. If I weren't getting paid or didn't have a character like Wolverine to maintain, I would just be a tall, lean, fit guy.
Hugh Jackman
#50. 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
#51. There are as many characters in men
As there are shapes in nature.
Ovid
#52. Good breeding in cattle depends on physical health, but in men on a well-formed character.
Democritus
#53. Sometimes I create a character from a scrap - a mere mention that has been left behind.
Sara Sheridan
#54. I guess that in a lot of ways, my writing is more of a character to me than something that I feel personally attached to.
Angel Olsen
#55. We can build new housing while preserving the quality and character of adjacent residential districts and ensuring infill development strengthens the surrounding neighborhood.
Gavin Newsom
#56. The love for our native land strengthens our individual and national character.
Alexander Hamilton
#57. People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.
Iris Murdoch
#58. 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
#59. Now for the hitch in Jane's character,' he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. 'The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble!
Charlotte Bronte
#60. Nor is faith meritorious; it is simply confidence in the goodness of God, and the lack of it is a reflection upon God's holy character.
A.W. Tozer
#61. 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
#62. I don't buy into that pressure to be glamorous all the time. It's impossible, I mean, you get a pimple in the morning, you wake up with bags under your eyes, you see if you can use it in your work, maybe incorporate it into your character.
Halle Berry
#63. I do play all the characters, when I write them, one after another. If they actually had to film me, the only one I could play would be Samwell Tarly or Hot Pie.
George R R Martin
#64. 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
#65. When we approached the project, the very first thing we did was take each character and say, "Okay, where would this character be?" We didn't want them to be caricatures of themselves. We wanted them to live and breathe, and grow with the audience and with us.
Jon Hurwitz
#66. If you can write a character who is attractive but morally reprehensible, then you've got a character. It's got to feel like people I know and it doesn't just become a bag of tricks.
Jez Butterworth
#67. 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
#68. Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.
Margaret Atwood
#69. I feel like any experience you can have which adds to your repertoire of things you've done and can add to your character - I'm willing to try.
Christa B. Allen
#70. If you're a good actor, then you channel enough of yourself into the character so that you do get that other thing.
Henry Cavill
#71. 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
#72. Catholic schools carry out a great mission, to serve God by building knowledge and character ... By teaching the word of God, you prepare your students to follow a path of virtue.
George W. Bush
#73. Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#74. Fame is what you have taken, character is what you give; when to this truth you waken then you begin to live.
Bayard Taylor
#75. There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions-that is, to name them and
Aristotle.
#76. The moral and intellectual character of the Africans is widely different in different nations.
Samuel George Morton
#77. My philosophy is always, "Let's get the spirit of the character." If people believe in it and the spirit of it, then it will work.
Julian Jarrold
#78. A whole lot of good my IQ came when it came to judging his character.
DiAnn Mills
#79. In order to inhabit a character, you've got to embrace and empathise with them.
Willem Dafoe
#80. A man's moral character may be completely sapped; that is the dreadful part of it.
Henrik Ibsen
#81. Well, everybody knew their character. I was the only one who didn't have a partner. I basically showed up when people got in trouble. Where I came from, I don't know. Nobody knows. But I would show up to help.
Bubba Smith
#82. In 1963, while my brothers were engaged in their lives, I call this period of my life 'my character-building years.' I adhered to the saying, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Marc Ashton
#83. My scars tell a story. They are a reminder of times when life tried to break me, but failed. They are markings of where the structure of my character was welded.
Steve Maraboli
#84. 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
#85. For a documentary it's so important to find the characters and to find people who will give you access to film
Adam McKay
#87. We had a script that was really solid and we knew how we were going to shoot and how the energy of it was going to go. So it gave us a lot of freedom to use the camera as a character.
Marguerite Moreau
#88. It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy - I mean Jimmy as the character.
Alan Alda
#89. 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
#90. But [Patrick's] character is partly based on a boy named Mark who lived across the street from me when I was growing up ... I liked hanging out with him and was sad when he moved away after only a year in the neighborhood. I guess writing about Patrick is a way for me to spend more time with Mark.
Linda Sue Park
#91. I try to never repeat a character. I always try to find something new and fresh and interesting that inspires me.
Martin Landau
#92. Listen to me. I said you need to strive to better than everyone else. I didn't say you needed to be better than everyone else. But you gotta try. That's what character is. It's in the try.
Eric Taylor
#93. The process of rehearsal means you learn so much and really get the chance to develop your work on a character.
Adam Garcia
#94. I read the script for 'Guncrazy' in 1985 and loved it because it was one of the few scripts I'd come across that revolved around a strong female character.
Tamra Davis
#95. Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time ... Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.
Swami Vivekananda
#96. I just think that unless you have that cohesiveness in the family unit, the male character tends to become very dominant, repressive and insensitive. So much of this comes also from a lack of education.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
#97. I don't know if I do anything to get into character: I just go with my gut.
Jamie Blackley
#98. Making cartoons means very hard work at every step of the way, but creating a successful cartoon character is the hardest work of all.
Joseph Barbera
#99. Finn crossed his arms and glared at Volusian. It was kind of a bold move, considering Finn looked like a cartoon character and Volusian looked like he ate the souls of small children. For all I knew, he probably did.
Richelle Mead
#100. The strange thing is, if I was speaking to drama students about the thing that you should do if you're lucky enough to know or to meet the character that you're playing, I'd say, 'It's obvious: you quiz them diligently about their experience.'
Rhys Ifans
