Best Character Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 18

“Michael Bohn provides a rare opportunity to experience the American sporting scene in the Roaring Twenties. A constant stream of legendary characters marches across these pages. You’ll meet them all: The Babe, The Four Horsemen, The Manassa Manassas Mauler, The Wheaton Iceman, Bill Tilden, Gertrude Ederle, and Grantland Rice, the sportswriter whose purple prose made them all come alive.”

“But my relief that David Auburn's Proof is less about its ballyhooed higher mathematics than the fragility of life and love was matched by my delight in his fine and tender play. (...) Proof surprises us with its aliveness and intelligent modesty, and we have not met these characters before.”

Play Character Fine Higher Mets And Love Intelligent Mathematics Surprise Delight Proof Relief Modesty Life And Love Fragility Matched Auburn Fragility Of Life

Author:John Heilpern

“It is a kind and wise arrangement of Providence that weaves our sorrows into the elements of character and that all the disappointments, and conflicts, and afflictions of life may, if rightly used, become the means of improvement, and create in us the sinews of strength.... the dross is left in the crucible, the baser metals are transmuted, and the character is enriched with gold.”

Ifs Kind May Mean Character Used Left Wise Sorrow Conflict Elements Gold Disappointment Improvement Metals Providence Arrangements Affliction Crucible Dross

Author:William Morley Punshon

“When I'm following what a character does in a book I don't have to think about my own life. Where I am. Why I'm here. My moms and my brother and my old man. I can just think about the character's life and try and figure out what's gonna happen. Plus when you're in a group home you pretty much can't go anywhere, right? But when you read books you almost feel like you're out there in the world. Like you're going on this adventure right with the main character. At least, that's the way I do it. It's actually not that bad. Even if it is mad nerdy.”

“Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?”

Character Truth Term Opinion Integrity Ethics Popular Song Popular Opinion

Book:Thoughts on African Colonization: Or an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society. Together with the Resolutions, Addresses and Remonstrances of the Free People of Color

Source: Thoughts on African Colonization: Or an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society. Together with the Resolutions, Addresses and Remonstrances of the Free People of Color

“In our society, most of us wear protective masks of various kinds and for various reasons. Very often the end result is that the masks grow to us, displacing our original characters with our assumed characters.”

Kind Ends Reason Character Grows Results Originals Various Mask Our Society Protective End Results

Book:Clarence John Laughlin: the personal eye

Source: Clarence John Laughlin: the personal eye

“Look at Andrew Roe's The Miracle Girl from one angle and you'll see an incisive and insightful critique of America at the millennium and today, investigating where we put our faith and why. The greatest of Roe's achievements in this captivating debut is a memorable feat of intense empathy. Roe inhabits characters who are desperate to believe and reveals to us their needs and wounds and hopes, and he does so with kindness, generosity, and wisdom. This is a novel about what it means to be human, to seek connection and hope and maybe even transcendence in the world around us.”

“There is tremendous life and personality in a name. It should be at least as agonized over as any character trait.”

Should Character Names Personality Traits Character Trait

Author:Travis Beacham

“William Hartnell was one of the great unsung character actors of his time”

Character Actors Character Actors

Author:David Bradley

“This novel has it all--mystery, psychological insight, emotional truth, and--most important--characters whose lives matter. You'll fall in love with these families. Solti writes with such passion it is inescapable, lyrical, and profoundly moving. The Forgetting Tree goes on my top ten list.”

Writing Important Matter Character Moving Fall Passion Forget Novel Mystery Tree Emotional Goes On Ten Falling In Love Insight Lists Psychological Lyrical

Author:Jonis Agee

“Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification-that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly.”

Men Character Facts Process Justice Vision Objects Judging Pure Every Man Treated Rational Recognition Fake Judged Identification Inanimate Objects Character Of A Man

Author:John Galt

“Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned-that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character-that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind.”

Men Mind Character Facts Action Desire Values Emotion Creation Products Pride Achievement Highest Recognition Premises

Author:John Galt

“Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo's vision, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

People Writing Character Stories Vision Saws Poet Angel Assuming Songwriters Autobiography Marble

Book:Salomé: In Every Inch in Every Mile

Source: Salomé: In Every Inch in Every Mile

“That’s the problem with fiction — or the charm, if you want. Even mediocre plots have a way of sinking their hooks into you, until you find yourself concerned for the fates of characters who aren’t even fully convincing.”

Ifs Way Want Character Problem Fiction Fate Concerned Charm Plot Finding Yourself Mediocre Hook Convincing Sinking

Author:Charles McGrath

“A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God.”

Heart Littles Made Soul Character Body Action Grace Movement Pure Motive Manifest Mechanism Accord Right Action

Book:The Christian Science Journal

Source: The Christian Science Journal

“What is enthralling and illuminating about The Metaphysical Club is its portraits of individuals and their milieus. Menand is wonderfully deft at evoking a climate of ideas or a cultural sensibility, embodying it in a character, and moving his characters into and out of one another's lives. What might have been a jumble of intellectual movements and colorful minor figures (...) is instead a subtle weave of entertaining narrative and astute interpretation.”

“One of the great pleasures of acting is surrendering to someone else's point of view of the world - living inside a character and a story that never would have come out of your mind or heart.”

World Mind Heart Character Stories Pleasure Views Acting Point Of View

Author:Brit Marling

“Generous in spirit, richly poetic, and packed with memorable characters.”

Character Spirit Generous Memorable Poetic Memorable Characters

Author:Lawrence Millman

“There is something in the character of every man which cannot be broken in--the skeleton of his character; and to try to alter this is like training a sheep for draught purposes. GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG, The Reflections of Lichtenberg We become familiar with the outsides of men, as with the outsides of houses, and think we know them, while we are ignorant of so much that is passing within them.”

Thinking Knows Men Trying Character Purpose House Broken Training Reflection Every Man Passing Ignorant Familiar Passings Sheep Skeletons Draught

Author:Christian Nestell Bovee

“Give me the character and I will forecast the event.”

Giving Character Events Give Me Forecasts

Author:Christian Nestell Bovee

“The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.”

Men Character Language He Man Expression Refined Coarse

Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

“It is difficult to say which is the greatest evil--to have too violent passions, or to be wholly devoid of them. Controlled with firmness, guided by discretion, and hallowed by the imagination, the passions are the vivifiers and quickeners of our being. Without passion there can be no energy of character. Indeed, the passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways, and dangerous only in one--through their excess.”

Way Character Passion Evil Energy Difficult Imagination Fire Dangerous Thousand Violent Controlled Excess Discretion Firmness No Energy

Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

“I think a good writer is a mix of confidence (sure that what they're writing is going to appeal to their readers) and uncertainty (what if all these words are crap?). If you're too confident, you get an attitude that seeps through into your writing, affecting the characters and the story. If you're too uncertain, you'll never finish anything.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Character Stories Attitude Reader Appeals Uncertainty What If Crap Uncertain Good Writers

Author:Charles de Lint

“I'd say that any character or setting can be given a bit of an otherworldly sheen and be the better for it. The one thing I insist on with my own writing is that I won't let magic solve my characters' real world problems. The solutions have to come from the characters themselves.”

World Writing Real Character Problem Given Bits My Own Magic One Thing Solutions Solve Setting Settings Real World World Problems

Author:Charles de Lint

“My characters seem real because they are drawn from the realities of my life. I didn't have to research their pain; I just tapped into my own.”

Real Character Reality Seems Pain My Own Research

Author:Charles de Lint

“I find the characters in my head and the more I write about them, the better I get to know them.”

Knows Writing Character

Author:Charles de Lint

“I believe a good writer can write a good book with any sort of character, in any sort of setting, but I prefer to write about the outsider. It might just be because I've been one (or perceived myself to be one) for so much of my life. But the simple fact of being marginalized immediately brings conflict to a story before the narrative even begins, and that's gold for a writer because it means that your character already has depth before events begin to unfold.”

Writing Believe Mean Book Character Facts Stories Might I Believe Simple Events Conflict Gold Depth Setting Settings Narrative Outsiders Good Book Good Writers Marginalized

Author:Charles de Lint

“Well, while I didn't have the more extreme experiences of some of my characters, I didn't exactly come from the most normal of households. Or rather, it was normal, in that dysfunctional families appear to be the norm.”

Wells Character Normal Extremes Household Norm Dysfunctional Family

Author:Charles de Lint

“The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does -- or even should -- contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it.”

Knows Should Littles Doe Has Beens Made Book Real Self Reason Character Stories Hands Might Faces Fun Reader Picks Familiar Factors Spots Titles Referencing Familiar Faces Book Titles

Author:Charles de Lint

“An age deficient in idealism has ever been one of immorality and superficial attainment, since without the sense of ideas, nobility of character becomes of rare attainment, if possible.”

Ifs Ideas Character Age Idealism Superficial Nobility Attainment Immorality

Book:Table-talk

Source: Table-talk

“Children are illuminated text-books, breviaries of doctrine, living bodies of divinity, open always and inviting their elders to peruse the characters inscribed on the lovely leaves.”

Children Book Character Body Lovely Doctrine Divinity Elders Inviting

Book:Table-talk

Source: Table-talk

“This Moses, I say, this man of old time, whose existence and character you are trying to elucidate, matters to nobody but scholars like you.”

Men Trying Matter Character Existence Like You Scholar Moses Old Time

Author:Ahad Ha'am

“More than all, and above all, [George] Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.”

Ifs Men May Self Character Hours Quality Influence Example Position He Man Masters Exercise Disregard

Author:Charles Francis Adams, Sr.

“Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves - all plot and no characters, or made-up characters - Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.”

Thinking Men Made War Character Hands Seems Perfect Fiction Fate Mess Plot Vietnam Session Fury Tanks Rotten Synthetic Briefing Small Hands

Author:Wilfrid Sheed

“Sometimes the character of the mistress is inferred from the dress of her maids.”

Sometimes Character Dresses Mistress Maids

Author:St. Jerome

“Many of the Bible characters fell just in the things in which they were thought to be strongest. Moses failed in his humility, Abraham in his faith, Elijah in his courage, for one woman scared him away to that juniper-tree; and Peter, whose strong point was boldness, was so frightened by a maid, as to deny his Lord.”

Character Strong Lord Tree Humility Scared Deny Strongest Frightened Peter Boldness Moses Abraham Maids One Woman Elijah

Author:Dwight L. Moody

“A man without characteristics is a most insipid character.”

Men Character

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“Axiom : Novel must have either one living character or a perfect pattern: fails otherwise.”

Character Perfect Novel Failing Patterns Axioms

Book:Commonplace Book

Source: Commonplace Book

“But I have seen my obstacles: trivialities, learning and poetry. This last needs explaining: the old artist's readiness to dissolve characters into a haze. Characters cannot come alive and fight and guide the world unless the novelist wants them to remain characters.”

World Want Needs Character Lasts Artist Fighting Alive Obstacles Guides Novelists Explaining Readiness Haze Triviality

Book:Commonplace Book

Source: Commonplace Book

“It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good . Guarantee a man's goodness and his liberty will take care of itself. To guarantee his freedom on condition that you approve of his moral character is formally to abolish all freedom whatsoever, as every man's liberty is at the mercy of a moral indictment which any fool can trump up against everyone who violates custom, whether as a prophet or as a rascal.”

Source: The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion

“Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?”

Men Character Mets Concerned Good Character My Fair Lady

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“If there is anything I hate in a woman, it's want of character.”

Ifs Want Character Hate I Hate

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“Our thoughts and our conduct are our own.”

Character Our Thoughts

Book:Short Studies on Great Subjects

Source: Short Studies on Great Subjects

“Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.”

Character Water Taste Mouths Flow Flavour