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Character Quotes

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Character Quotes

“One of the most important virtues of the American character is our ability to approach the complexities that life presents us with common sense and decency, .. The considered judgment of the American people is not going to rise or fall on the fine distinctions of a legal argument but on straight talk and the truth. It is time for the president and the Congress to follow that common sense for the good of the country.”

“All I know is it’s silly to chase fun when all you need is the ground underneath you to be solid. And I don’t expect to be one of those people that does cartwheels in yogurt commercials. I wanna be the cartoon character in that antidepressant ad who has, like, little lines under her eyes, and the divot in the middle of the pill is the pill’s mouth... have you seen this ad? It’s very good. It’s for Abilify, which is not a word.”

“To touch on people's lives [ in a way they ] haven't been touched on before, it´s fascianting. You know, it's one thing if [ a celebrity ] has an incredible character and you're really going to be able to delve into their personality – that's great. But you can never get real purity if people have been spoiled by the camera and don't trust you. I like feeling that I'm able to be a voice for those people who aren't famous, the people that don't have the great opportunities.”

“Acting is a marvelous profession ... If you can spend enough time playing other people, you don't have to think too much about your own character and motivations.”

“An important advance in the life of a people is the transformation of the religion of fear into the moral religion. But one must avoid the prejudice that regards the religions of primitive peoples as pure fear religions and those of the civilized races as pure moral religions. All are mixed forms, though the moral element predominates in the higher levels of social life. Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of the idea of God.”

“It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at.”

“By denying people's sense of visual beauty in painting and sculpture , melody in music , meter and rhyme in poetry , plot and narrative and character in fiction , the elite arts wrote off the vast majority of their audience . They purposely excluded people who approach art in part for pleasure and edification in favour of social one-upmanship and an ever-narrowing, in-crowd elite.”

“I don't have a preference for bad people, no. I have an interest in playing a broad range of characters. Obviously, I'm mostly identified with a character who is very responsible, very solid and very intelligent, but there are plenty of questionable characters in my past career. I'm interested in exploring theatricality and characters with some dimension.”

“You must learn to look at people who are angry with you straight in the eye without getting angry back. When children see their parents treating them this way, they then recognize the parents' authority. It speaks louder than words. Their new respect for the parents is as good for them as it is for the parents. It never works to demand respect of children. It must be given willingly as a result of strength of good character in the parents, which is manifested by their non-reaction to stress in the children.”

“I think everyone should read The Girl on The Train, especially if they loved Gone Girl. It's about Rachel, a girl who sees a couple on her commute. Then one day she sees one of the people from the couple kiss another person. The next day they go missing. The story is told by 3 different perspectives, all characters you absolutely can't trust. It's an insane psychological thriller that's seriously addicting and the kind of book you can't put down.”

“There's no doubt that I really have a feeling for the theater. These past few days it has occurred to me to do a comedy whose chief characters are photographic enlargements. Those people we see in doorways. Newlyweds, sergeants, dead girls, an anonymous crowd full of mustaches and wrinkles. It should be terrible. If I focus it well, it will possess pathos without consolation. In the midst of those people I will place an authentic fairy.”

“Absolutely. I think, I think the American people, at their core, are a decent people. I think that we still have prejudice in our midst, but I think that the vast majority of Americans are willing, are willing to judge people on the basis of their ideas and their character. And in the case of the presidency, I think what's most important is whether the American people think that you understand their hopes and dreams and struggles and whether they think you can actually help them achieve those hopes and dreams.”

“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.”

“The anger that you see expressed out there in Los Angeles, in my district this evening, is a righteous anger, and it's difficult for me to say to the people, "Don't be angry." When people are angry and enraged, they do do senseless things. They do act even sometimes out of character, and that's why it is the responsibility of America to try and avoid putting people in these kinds of situations.”

“As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of human character are not as rare as we would like to believe. Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the "banality of evil" -- that is, under certain conditions and social pressures, ordinary people can commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable.”

“From the time of the North Briton of the unprincipled Wilkes , a notion has been entertained that the moral spine in Scotland is more flexible than in England. The truth however is, that an elementary difference exists in the public feelings of the two nations quite as great as in the idioms of their respective dialects. The English are a justice-loving people, according to charter and statute; the Scotch are a wrong-resenting race, according to right and feeling: and the character of liberty among them takes its aspect from that peculiarity.”

“Well, one of the things we're supposed to be able to do as playwrights is write from a place of empathy, get into another character's shoes and experience things both mundane and tragic. And people don't - like me right now - people aren't necessarily the most eloquent when trying to express their emotions. I guess I feel as a playwright that those people deserve a voice, too, a voice that isn't so articulate that they themselves can no longer identify with it.”