I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.

When I write, I try to become different characters.

A man’s character is his destiny.

Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It’s a state of mind – you could call it character in action

Comedy and drama are different sides of the same coin. And the thing about comedy and drama is about likability. It’s about character first. It’s about story. And for me, it’s about empathy, and I think the realer someone is, the further you can go either way with them.

To say America can have strong leadership without strong character is to say we can get water without the wet.

I embrace my blackness, just as I do my conservatism and my Christianity, but I don’t want to be defined or pigeonholed by any one of the many elements that make up my character.

Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It’s not hard. Character is doing what’s right when nobody’s looking.

Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.

Nothing perhaps affects man’s character more than the company he keeps.

What could an unsanctified man do in Heaven, if by any chance he got there? No man can possibly be happy in a place where he is not in his element, and where all around him is not congenial to his tastes, habits, and character.

Doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless; it does positive harm. Something of ‘the image of Christ’ must be seen and observed by others in our private life, and habits, and character, and doings.

I think often times on Joss Whedon’s shows he can make you hate a character for a period and then love the character. He does it effortlessly.

I always say that I’m at my best when there’s no example of what the character is supposed to be. I thrive when there’s not much and I have to create it.

I went right to the ‘Guide to the Marvel Universe,’ which has every Marvel character from A-Z, and fortunately, I had every issue. I found ‘Deathlok,’ read about him there.

Oddly enough, I’ve always really loved Nightcrawler. You know who else they didn’t use enough was Phoenix. I just thought her story line was so tragic. I was just really drawn to that character as well.

Oddly enough, I’ve always really loved Nightcrawler. You know who else they didn’t use enough was Phoenix. I just thought her story line was so tragic. I was just really drawn to that character as well.

All you need to know about plotting is twofold. 1. Give your characters goals. 2. Don’t let them reach those goals.

The business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken.

Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions

Office of itself does much to equalize politicians. It by no means brings all characters to a level; but it does bring high characters down and low characters up towards a common standard

The best roles are the ones where you have a connection with the character. It’s like an extension of yourself

The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out

A well-portrayed character lingers in the hearts of the audience, becoming a part of their own stories

Great stories resonate because they tap into universal truths; that’s the power of compelling characters

Characters are like puzzle pieces; my job is to fit into their world and bring them to life

Acting is a journey of self-discovery; every role is a new chapter in understanding the human experience

If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude and all the other qualities which enoble the character of a nation, and fulfill the ends of Government be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre, which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set, which can not but have the most favorable influence on the rights of Mankind.

The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon . . . has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.

Donna Tartt blows me away – that impeccable writing, so rich you could eat it and so luminous that it lights up the whole room, and the way she brings her characters to life so completely and in such fine detail that you know them as intimately as your dearest friends.

The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon… has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.

All of these characters have some DNA of mine, I share it with the character

In writing lyrics – well, for me, anyway – it’s about getting into character, you know? ‘Who is writing this?’ In the case of the original ‘Thick As A Brick,’ supposedly a precocious, very young child who’s fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time.

The characters that I create are parts of myself and I send them on little missions to find out what I don’t know yet.

Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can’t stay down. We can’t allow life to beat us down. Everything happens for a reason, and it builds character in us, and it tells us what we are about and how strong we really are when we didn’t think we could be that strong.

Daughter, we didn’t need your note – or a prince’s visit – to tell us you’d done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our love and our trust wherever you wander. Father.

The true measure of a person’s character is how they treat those who can do nothing for them

If you’re making a movie about the effects of time, you kind of have to engage time as the main character.

I just sort of take it from a character perspective, and I don’t know if he was necessarily spiritual, but I do think he had hope. He was a character that was comfortable having hope in his life, and hope is faith.

He … boasted an unassuming mustache, which was perched atop his upper lip cautiously, as though it were slightly embarrassed to be there and would like to slide away and become a sideburn or something more fashionable.

Classic author moment, “Oh dear, did I kill that character or not?

I don’t know, a lot of people go crazy about ‘Breaking Bad,’ but I don’t like the soap opera aspect of it and only following one character. I like the context to all of it, all the pieces, like ‘The Wire.’ It’s more about the state of things; it’s not about the narrative of a person.

We all have a cross-gender character: Every woman has a man that they can play, and every man has a woman that they can play.

I love rehearsals and I love creating a character, sticking with it until you have something to tell. It’s always different though. Sometimes a director will tell you from day one what they want. Then you throw in your idea.

If the character is true, the movie will fall into place. Or at least that’s what you hope.

On his character Dean in Blue Valentine: It’s sad, because he just doesn’t have any ambition outside of loving his wife and his daughter, which should be enough but doesn’t seem to be enough in this case.

All my characters are me. I’m not a good enough actor to become a character. I hear about actors who become the role and I think ‘I wonder what that feels like.’ Because for me, they’re all me.

We must consider the distinctive characters and the general nature of plants from the point of view of their morphology, their behavior under external conditions, their mode of generation, and the whole course of their life

Aaranya Kaandam’ is a term from the Ramayana. It means Jungle Chapter but apart from the term, I haven’t borrowed anything else. The characters are as good or as bad as the common man.

I like strong women. Strong women characters have always existed in the movies of directors such as K. Balachander and Mani Ratnam

Larger-than-life characters make up about .01 percent of the world’s population.

vIn baseball, success is measured not just by wins and losses but by the character of the players.

I don’t care what it is, when I’m playing a character, I put a lot of truth into it. I put my heart and soul into it.

Baseball is a game where you can’t hide; your character is always on display

I can say this: You haven’t lived until you’ve had to wear a triplet pregnancy belly. You would be amazed at what a girl can learn based on the different months of pregnancy to make her character more interesting.

You have to respect who the character is. It has its own internal truth, and you can’t betray that. And if you don’t betray that, it will not betray you

Johnny Depp is somebody I really love working with because he doesn’t care how he looks. He wants to become weird characters and I like that.

It’s always an interesting challenge to see if you can create a character that’s got emotion.

I always liked strange characters.

When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honor and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon

Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters

Every story is a journey, and every character is a traveler on that journey

He made his character his platform.

I profoundly regard writing and hope to pick up knowledge from a book and to distinguish it sincerely from its characters. I accordingly abstain from perusing tension books or sci-fi.

Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS…

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

Character is much easier kept than recovered

David Wain’s character on ‘Bob’s Burgers’ is really funny and silly and makes me laugh.

One believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction.

The history of India for many centuries had been happier, less fierce, and more dreamlike than any other history. In these favorable conditions, they built a character – meditative and peaceful and a nation of philosophers such as could nowhere have existed except in India.

What are you reading?” Owen asks. “Charlotte’s Web,” Liz says. “It’s really sad. One of the main characters just died.” “You ought to read the book from end to beginning,” Owen jokes. “That way, no one dies, and it’s always a happy ending.

I think I’m drawn to more villain-type characters, because it’s so cool to get to say all the things you want to say. In Hollywood, you get to this position where you have to bite your tongue so much. You take all your experiences of not being able to say what you really want to say, and channel that through your character.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.

Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you

My role models were always the Pacinos and the Oldmans, the guys who get dirty with their characters, and I arrived in L.A. during the big boom of ‘Dawson’s Creek.’ I was getting cast as the boy next door, or the friend of the jock. I thought, ‘Did I really have to do all that studying?’

The craft of putting together a performance on film or television is incredibly intricate; you’re putting together a story that is completely out of order, that you have to make some sense of, that you have to keep some coherence to the story, to the character.

What you are will show in what you do.

Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

The character of a people may be ruined by charity.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.

Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.

One of my personal plights in this business is about playing ‘The Sassy Black Girl.’

I’m really, really happy with what I do for a living. I mean, that’s what I consider work, like being on set, bringing a character to life and, you know, working with other actors and directors and stuff.

If you’re writing on your own, each character is just you. It’s just you.

Acting is acting, and who you are will still remain to be who you are. You know, that part won’t change it. It will change your wallet, you know? It’ll change your life. It will open opportunities for you, but it’s not going to change your character.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.

The need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla.

For I consider the character of no man affected by a want of success, provided he has made an honest effort to succeed.

A true test of a man’s character is his humility in victory and grace in defeat.

Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.

It’s patently impossible for a Muslim character to represent ‘all Muslims.

Loyalty is a feature in a boy’s character that inspires boundless hope.

I’m from Port Arthur, Texas! Little guy! Little character guy from one of the saddest oil-refinery towns in America. And here I was driving over to Beverly Hills, to 20th Century Fox, to be on ‘M*A*S*H!’

God uses various agencies as ambassadors of His truth. The perfection of the instrument used gives character to the work. A noble character will command respect and confidence.

The Bible and its precepts are to be the means of testing character.

Walk continually in the light of God. Meditate day and night upon His character. Then you will see His beauty and rejoice in His goodness. Your heart will glow with a sense of His love. You will be uplifted as if borne by everlasting arms. With the power and light that God imparts, you can comprehend more and accomplish more than you ever before deemed possible.

Character is power.

Our character is but the shadow of what we are to be. Christ’s object in coming to earth was to reveal to men that lost image of God’s character in themselves.

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time

If one could make alive again for other people some cobwebbed skein of old dead intrigues and breathe breath and character into dead names and stiff portraits. That is history to me!

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.

The ultimate test of a nation’s character is not how it responds to adversity in war but how it meets the challenge of peace.

You’ve got to learn to survive a defeat. That’s when you develop character.

Reputation is what people think you are. Character is who you really are. Take care of your character and your reputation will take care of itself. The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.

Adversity defines true character.

Don’t walk through life just playing football. Don’t walk through life just being an athlete. Athletics will fade. Character and integrity and really making an impact on someone’s life, that’s the ultimate vision, that’s the ultimate goal – bottom line.

I liked Vittorio De Sica a lot, and I got to work with him once in a segment movie. He was a great director. He was a very charismatic character and a guy I watched a lot when he was directing.

It’s always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

I always thought of myself as a character actor. I never thought of myself as a leading man.

People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

It is no flattery to give a friend a due character; for commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension.

It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty.

Character is long-standing habit.

Kitchens are hard environments and they form incredibly strong characters.

Quality of character doesn’t make a leader, but the lack of it flaws the entire process.

Silver is purified in fire and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed.

The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better.

For ‘Hercules,’ I went for the demigod look: big and mean. When you’re playing a character like the son of Zeus, you only get one shot.

The way you behave when nobody is around defines your real character.

I think a lot of people have seen me on The Simple Life and think I’m a “spoilt airhead,” but I was playing a character. The producers said they wanted Nicole and I just to be crazy and funny and say outlandish things.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

It hurts that, you know, the media’s made me into sort of this like punching bag or cartoon character-they think that I don’t have any feelings, and, you know, it hurts like anyone else.

Politics ruins the character.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.

So, you who wish to have an exemplary character before God and before men, remember that, if ill company does not burn you to your hurt, it is sure to blacken you by damaging your reputation.

Because motivation pervades all action, it is important that we have a positive motivation. Whatever we are involved in, whether it’s politics, education, medicine, law, engineering, science, business or industry, the nature of our motivation determines the character of our work.

The great matter is not how long you pray, but how earnestly you pray. Consider the life of the prayer rather than the length of the prayer. If your prayer reaches to heaven it is long enough.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.

Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do ‘Nothing’ for you.

Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them.

Science is not perfect. It’s often misused; it’s only a tool, but it’s the best tool we have. Self-correcting , ever changing, applicable to everything: with this tool, we vanquish the impossible.

Society’s future will depend on a continuous improvement program for the human character. And what will that future bring? I do not know, but it will be exciting.

This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing

It may, however, be said that the level of experience to which concepts are inapplicable cannot yield any knowledge of a universal character, for concepts alone are capable of being socialized.

It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new

Cry Baby is just a character in this world that I’m trying to create, and the music videos are really important to me, and I’ve fought to obviously get all of them approved.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect

Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they’ll become… habits. Watch your habits for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will make your destiny.

It is better to be alone than in bad company.

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

The only freedom that exists is of a metaphysical character. In the physical world freedom is an impossibility

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character