Best character & firsts Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“If I had to choose criteria, for me, it's about first the director. I want to be a part of something that's good and intellectually challenging. After the director it's the character and the story. That's the deal for me.”

Ifs Want Firsts Character Stories Challenges Deals Directors Criteria

Author:Giovanni Ribisi

“I think about everything first. I think about the scenario: the story and the characters, what I'm trying to say and I'll think about that for a couple of days until it's all locked in and then when I get to an instrument it'll just fall out. But the song's kind of all ready there in my head.”

Thinking Trying Firsts Kind Character Stories Song Fall Ready Couple Instruments Locked Scenarios

Author:Graham Russell

“Well, I think probably when I first got in the business, I wasn't thinking of being strictly a character actor. But I knew I wanted to be a working actor, and as the years have gone on, I just naturally evolved into that. Because, y'know, I'm not a leading guy. Never was.”

Thinking Knows Years Firsts Wells Character Wanted Guy Actors Gone Character Actors

Author:Stephen Root

“We're well past the end of the century when time, for the first time, curved, bent, slipped, flash forwarded, and flashed back yet still kept rolling along. We know it all now, with our thoughts traveling at the speed of a tweet, our 140 characters in search of a paragraph. We're post-history. We're post-mystery.”

Knows Firsts Wells Stills Ends Character Past Mystery Century First Time Speed Posts Flash Rolling Our Thoughts Bent Tweet Paragraph Know It All 140 Character Rolling Along

Author:Ali Smith

“Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.”

Thinking Firsts Wells Two Character Novel Neurotic

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“The first thing I do when I read a part is see if I can identify emotionally with a character. If I make that connection, everything else is just working on knowing their life circumstances and manifesting those through practice and research.”

Ifs Firsts I Can Character Practice Knowing Circumstances Research Connections Manifest

Author:Joshua Leonard

“First, you do a piece of material that begins and ends and has a flow; it's not chopped up as in a film, where in an extreme case you might be doing the last scene of the script the first day that you go to work, and you don't know enough about the character you're playing.”

Knows Firsts Ends Enough Character Might Lasts Film Cases Pieces Materials Scene Flow Scripts Extremes

Author:Jean Stapleton

“I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Character Stories Wanted Next Strong Novel Female Decided Female Characters Strong Female Characters Strong Female

Author:Joan D. Vinge

“I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.”

Writing Years Firsts Character Stories Would Be Imagination Fiction Novel Subjects Skills Research Useless Articles Reporters My Imagination Profile

Author:Amy Waldman

“When I started formulating the first Frank comic, I knew I wanted it to be something that was beyond time and specific place. I felt that having the characters speak would tie it to 20th-century America, because that would be the idiom of the language they would use, the language I use.”

Firsts Character Use Would Be Wanted America Speak Language Felt Century Comic Ties Frank 20th Century Idiom

Author:Jim Woodring

“The first time I walked into the Olympic athlete village seeing the Visa ATM machine with my picture on it and the Chinese characters saying "Destiny." For some reason, it just boosted my confidence and it was before I had even worked out or had my first training or competed.”

Firsts Reason Character Destiny Seeing Training First Time Machines Athlete Chinese Village Visa Olympic Athlete Atm Atm Machines

Author:Nastia Liukin

“I like to write first-person because I like to become the character I'm writing.”

Writing Firsts Persons Character First Person

Author:Wally Lamb

“First person allows deeper insight into the protagonist's character. It allows the reader to identify more fully with the protagonist and to share her world quite intimately. So it suits a story focused on one character's personal journey. However, first person shuts out insights into other characters.”

World Firsts Persons Character Stories Journey Share Reader Deeper Insight Focused Suits First Person Protagonists Personal Journey

Author:Juliet Marillier

“It is common to distinguish necessaries, comforts, and luxuries; the first class including all things required to meet wants which must be satisfied, while the latter consist of things that meet wants of a less urgent character.”

Want Firsts Character Common Class Comfort All Things Including Satisfied Luxury Latter Urgent First Class

Book:Principles of Economics

Source: Principles of Economics

“If you'd like to meet some fully realized characters while learning some specifics of Zimbabwe's postcolonial struggles, as I did, you're likely to come away with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. If you're willing to settle for first-rate writing and provocative meditations on memory, corruption and loss, they are all here in abundance.”

Ifs Writing Firsts Character Feelings Memories Loss Struggle Meditation Willing Rate Corruption Settling Abundance Vague Dissatisfaction Provocative Zimbabwe Specifics

Author:Jabari Asim

“I remember my first commercial. This is really great 'Degrassi' trivia: The character Toby on 'Degrassi,' played by Jake Goldsbie, he and I were in both of our first commercial ever when we were four. It was for Tiger Toys, this old Game Boy-type thing. Both of our lines were, 'Mommy, I can do it!”

Firsts I Can Character Remember Games Can Do Lines Boys Four Type Toys Really Great Tigers I Can Do It Jake Trivia Toby

Author:Charlotte Arnold

“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.”

Want Firsts Littles Two Character Night Actors Prayer Laughing Five Minutes Stage Demand Starting Stakes Broadway Five Minutes Exit Starting Out

Author:Charles Kimbrough

“I was about two years old when I first started drawing recognizable characters.”

Years Firsts Two Character Drawing Two Years Two Year Olds

Author:Seth MacFarlane

“My first two novels were set in the past, and that freed me up in a lot of ways; it allowed me to find my way into my story and my characters through research.”

Way Firsts Two Character Stories Past Novel Research My Way

Author:Jennifer Gilmore

“Brands are useful ways of short-handing practically anything - look at the way Tom Wolfe first used brand name lists to sharpen up a character and a situation. Look at the most brand-referenced novel, Bret Easton Ellis's 'Glamorama.”

Way Firsts Looks Character Used Names Situation Novel Lists Brands Toms Brand Names

Author:Peter York

“Pop managers are fixed in the dramatic stock character repertoire too, ever since the first British pop film musical, Wolf Mankowitz's 'Expresso Bongo' of 1959, with Cliff Richard as Bongo Herbert and Laurence Harvey as his manager. The key components were cast as X parts gay, X parts Jewish and triple X opportunistic.”

Firsts Character Film Keys Gay Musical Casts Pops British Managers Fixed Dramatic Components Cliffs Harvey Bongos

Author:Peter York

“When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.”

Firsts Play Character Desire Acting Comedy Theater Musical Tragic Opera Musical Theater

Author:Leslie Easterbrook

“When I read a script and have my first interaction with this character, do I feel like there's something I'm gonna' learn here? If I feel like it's something I've done before, then what's the incentive for me to do it?”

Ifs Feels Firsts Done Character Scripts Interaction Incentives

Author:Bill Skarsgard

“The right to freedom of expression is justified first of all as the right of an individual purely in his capacity as an individual. It derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentialities as a human being.”

Men Firsts Humans Ends Character Individual Human Beings Acceptance Expression Capacity Western Accepted Civil Rights Realization Justified Premises Freedom Of Expression

Author:Thomas I. Emerson

“Costume is always an asset. Normal costume you have a lot to say about - if you're wearing suits or ties, and what color you want, and how it's going to be cut, and stuff like that, and whether or not you're going to wear a hat, and blah, blah, blah. But, when you're wearing a special costume, and of course, costume is probably the second ingredient in character, script being first, I always find that the costume does a lot to cement your character, to put it firmly in mind.”

Ifs Want Mind Firsts Doe Character Courses Stuff Cutting Special Color Normal Scripts Suits Ties Hats Ingredients Assets Costumes Cement Blah Wearing A Suit

Author:Morgan Freeman

“Fine natures are like fine poems; a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you read on.”

Ifs Firsts Two Character Waiting Lines Fine Glances

Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“One must keep one's character. Earn a character first if you can, and if you can't, then assume one.”

Ifs Firsts Character Assuming

Book:Mark Twain Speaks for Himself

Source: Mark Twain Speaks for Himself

“When I got the script to this movie, The Good Girl, I read it in an hour. The writer, Mike White, has an ability to create characters that are so creepy and dysfunctional and human, with this duality that makes people feel empathy for them at the same time. My first thought was 'Was this sent to the right person?' I called my agent. 'Are they sure? Let's say yes before they realize they've sent it to the wrong person!'”

“The character of greatness must be measured in two ways, else the measurement is flawed. First, and by far most popular of all, is by one's ability to succeed in times of trial where others may fail. But of no less importance, and perhaps foundational to any form of greatness, is one's willingness to start over in spite of failure, when success seems farthest away.”

Way Firsts May Two Character Seems Form Ability Failing Greatness Succeed Importance Trials Spite Willingness Flawed Starting Over Measurement Two Ways Ability To Succeed

Author:Guy Finley

“I have a clear view of 12 years of history of my inner self. First the cramped self, that self with big blinkers, then the disappearance of the blinkers and the self, now gradually the reemergence of a self without blinkers.”

Years Firsts Self Character Bigs Views Clear Inner Self Disappearance Clear View Blinkers

Author:Paul Klee

“It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to color, and light and shade, in the highest degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art. By a few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted.”

Firsts Art Character Light Eye Turns Objects Color Masters Degrees Highest Mark Regard Excellence Shade Strokes

Book:Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, Delivered at the Royal Academy

Source: Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, Delivered at the Royal Academy

“All my movies have an autobiographical dimension, but that is indirectly, through the characters. In fact I am behind everything that happens and that is said, but I am never talking about myself in first person. Something in me - probably a dislike of cheap exhibitionism- stops me from approaching a project too autobiographically.”

Firsts Persons Said Character Facts Happens Behinds Talking Projects Dimensions Dislike First Person Exhibitionism

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.”

Ifs Want Inspirational Firsts Character Focus Talent Greatness Primaries

Book:Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE Every Day

Source: Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE Every Day

“When I first met Adèle I was like, ‘Wow, this girl has a strong character!’ She has something very free about her. I’m not used to it. Some actresses are too self-aware, they strike a pose. Adèle is a force of nature.”

Firsts Self Character Used Girl Strong Force Mets Actresses Strikes Ads Wow Forces Of Nature This Girl Strong Character

Author:Lea Seydoux

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven.”

Firsts Soul Character Suffering Heaven Fire Tears Sorrow Massive Gates Strongest Scar Martyr Robes Sorrowful Coronation Gates Of Heaven

Author:Bill Vaughan

“The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of history.”

Firsts Humans Character Results Opinion Records Currents Permanent Novelists Accurate Phases

Author:John Dos Passos

“I'll never forget my high school acting teacher, Anthony Abeson, who said, "It starts with the shoes." When I think about a character, it does start with the shoes: What kind would she wear? How would she walk in them? If I'm going to put on a dress for a role - I don't care if it's the hardest dress to put on - I have to put the shoes on first. The physicality leads me to the character.”

“The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play - characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.”

Trying Firsts Play Character Remember Realizing Roles Ego First Time Who I Am Climbs Texas Flattering Mixing Reacting Motels

Author:Paul Newman

“Home is the first and most important school of character. It is there that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst; for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only with life.”

Firsts Humans Important Character Home School Human Beings Moral Principles Worst Training Endure Cease Manhood

Book:Character

Source: Character

“When anything is present to the mind, what is the very first and simplest character to be noted in it, in every case, no matter how little elevated the object may be? Certainly, it is its presentness .”

Mind Firsts May Littles Matter Character Cases Objects Simplest

Book:Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce

Source: Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce

“What our view of the effectiveness of religion in history does at once make evident as to its nature is--first, its necessary distinction; second, its necessary supremacy. These characters though external have been so essential to its fruitfulness, as to justify the statement that without them religion is not religion. A merged religion and a negligible or subordinate religion are no religion.”

Firsts Doe Has Beens Character Views Essentials Statements Distinction Justify Evident Effectiveness Subordinates Supremacy Fruitfulness

Book:The meaning of God in human experience: philosophic study of religion

Source: The meaning of God in human experience: philosophic study of religion

“No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.”

Thinking Men World Giving Firsts Persons Character Values Understanding Dark Common Accepting Opinion Creatures Capacity Rate Casts Contrary Common Sense Leap Proposal Matrimony

Book:Moll Flanders

Source: Moll Flanders

“For me, the walk of the character is always the first part that I must define for myself.”

Firsts Character Walks

Author:Halle Berry

“I don't particularly care about having [my characters] talk realistically, that doesn't mean very much to me. Actually, a lot of people speak more articulately than some critics think, but before the 20th century it really didn't occur to many writers that their language had to be the language of everyday speech. When Wordsworth first considered that in poetry, it was considered very much of a shocker. And although I'm delighted to have things in ordinary speech, it's not what I'm trying to perform myself at all: I want my characters to get their ideas across, and I want them to be articulate.”

People Thinking Want Writing Trying Firsts Mean Ideas Character Care Speak Language Century Speech Ordinary Critics Everyday 20th Century Delighted Wordsworth

Author:Louis Auchincloss

“There's that lovely thing for the first month or two of writing a new book: OK, I don't know what that character's going to do, but we'll find out later. After about three or four months you come to that bit where you've got to put some plot in before it's too late, and you have to go back and start inserting plot, and, ooh, I've left out the literature, OK, lets put some in.”

Knows Writing Firsts Two Book Character Three Literature Left Bits Four Months Late Lovely Too Late Plot Left Out New Books Lovely Things Before It's Too Late

Author:Terry Pratchett

“The "Lucifer Effect" describes the point in time when an ordinary, normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action. It represents a transformation of human character that is significant in its consequences. Such transformations are more likely to occur in novel settings, in "total situations," where social situational forces are sufficiently powerful to overwhelm, or set aside temporally, personal attributes of morality, compassion, or sense of justice and fair play.”

“I am aware that many regard me as an anti-sports character person, but the truth is that the country's economy by then was in bad shape. Tanzania being among the highly indebted countries, I had to give sports the least prominence during my first term, while setting priorities in revitalising our economy.”

Giving Firsts Persons Country Character Sports Term Economy Truth Is Shapes Regard Priorities Setting Settings Indebted Prominence Tanzania

Author:Benjamin Mkapa

“The characters are great, and this is the first adventure of the brothers Grimm, so there's plenty of potential to make a franchise. We've been quite successful in the past, so anything like that, if it does pay off with hopefully the good movie that I think it will be, it pays off also down the road.”

Ifs Thinking Firsts Doe Character Past Pay Successful Adventure Brother Plenty Hopefully Down The Road Good Movie Grimm Brothers Grimm

Author:Bob Weinstein

“If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on.”

“When the first emperor wanted to unify the country, one of the major policies was to create one system of written signs. By force, brutal force, he eliminated all the other scripts. One script became the official script. All the others were banned. And those who used other scripts were punished severely. And then the meanings of all the characters, over the centuries, had to be kept uniform as a part of the political apparatus. So from the very beginning the written word was a powerful political tool.”

Firsts Country Character Wanted Political Used Force Powerful Written Century Policy Majors Tools Scripts Officials Brutal Uniforms Emperor Banned Written Word

Author:Ha Jin

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Character Quotes