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Character Quotes

It is the character that makes people different. If everybody has the same character, the world would lose all its colors and variety. Thanks to the DNA, circumstances and the zillions of philosophical and theosophical ideologies that we subscribe to, we are different. Even though the modern, corporate culture seeks to make us perform at the same levels, we are still different. These days, when the world is a global village, the differences in cultures and individuals may be blurring but they still exist. Here's hoping the vibrancy of earth stays and survives in the differences that its inhabitants exhibit. Read these character quotes to know more about the subject.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character.

Life Strength
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bill Clinton

Character is a journey, not a destination.

Bill Clinton
Oliver Jackson-Cohen

For a long time, I so badly wanted to work with Jeremy Piven, and I ended up on 'Mr. Selfridge' with him. He was such a character - so brilliant to work with.

Time Work
Oliver Jackson-Cohen
Jurnee Smollett

I try to give each performance my own soul, to bring a truth to my character. Hopefully, when I bring that much truth to a character, it resonates with somebody, and it sparks some kind of emotion in them.

Soul Truth
Jurnee Smollett

Things present themselves to you, and it's how you choose to deal with them that reveals who you are. We all say a lot of things, don't we, about who we are and how we think. But in the end it's your actions, how you respond to circumstance that reveals your character.

Cate Blanchett
Rosario Dawson

I thought my character definitely was very much in love with him and wanted to be with him, but I think at some point they were going to have to draw the line.

Love
Rosario Dawson
Billie Jean King

Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.

Life Sports
Billie Jean King
P. G. Wodehouse

To find a man's true character, play golf with him.

Sports Golf
P. G. Wodehouse
Dwight L. Moody

If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me.

Reputation
Dwight L. Moody
Gene Tierney

I am not the kind of woman who excuses her mistakes while reminding us of what used to be.

Attitude Being Yourself Personality Women
Gene Tierney
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honour for me.

Good Future
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Zendaya

I think the way we react to things is a big indicator of our character and what type of person we are.

Zendaya

Usually I'm frustrated when I look at my films and I don't believe that I've made a real transformation beyond my usual sets of gestures and expressions. I still have this nagging feeling that it's me, that I didn't create a unique character.

Helena Bonham Carter
Theodore Roosevelt

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

Personality Residency Responsibility Country
Theodore Roosevelt
Dakota Johnson

When I did 'The Social Network', David Fincher told me that I managed to make a thankless character pretty awesome. I thought that was really cool because I think he's really cool.

Cool
Dakota Johnson
Ryan Gosling

I try to play characters who are different from myself, so I feel like this character is someone who is really different. I actually think that if I did what he did in this movie, I would get a restraining order put against me.

Ryan Gosling
Nina Dobrev

I think you have to draw from any character and bring it to yourself as much as possible.

Nina Dobrev
Matt LeBlanc

As an actor, the biggest compliment you can get, in my book is for someone to believe that you're the character.

Matt LeBlanc

I do feel like anything benefits from character logic. That can be from the dumbest ad to the greatest Shakespearean drama to the silliest 'Saturday Night Live' sketch. There is a certain specificity in detail, which you can get when you're paying attention to stuff like that.

Night
David Harbour
Karen Fukuhara

I adore actors/actresses that have range: someone that can transform into a character that is far beyond who they truly are. Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp are amazing at this.

Karen Fukuhara

I'm not a big guy. I'm not a menacing guy. I'm not an intimidating guy. I may look that way, but just spend two seconds talking to me, and you know that's not who I am - not as a person, as a character. It's not who I intend to be.

Dave Bautista

When you're a child, and you're growing up, and you're mimicking a certain character, or you're trying to live and breathe a certain character on set for eight years that are also your formative years, you oftentimes take a lot of who you're playing into your real life and kind of become that thing.

Life
Cole Sprouse
William Zabka

I didn't set out to be a villain in film. I'm a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.

Comedy
William Zabka
Helena Bonham Carter

You learn to rely on a few basic movements and use your voice to the greatest extent possible to convey your emotions. So there was a technical challenge there and a responsibility to create a character from behind the mask.

Responsibility
Helena Bonham Carter
River Phoenix

I'm really normal. I play football, go to the beach, drive. We have dogs. I can imagine people calling me a character, but I'm Joe Straight.

People Football
River Phoenix
Tom Holland

When I'm acting, it's like I am the character - no one can talk to me. But I'm not so method I'd sell my house and live on the street to play a tramp.

Tom Holland
Alexandra Daddario

I took Meisner for a long time. I use a lot of sense memory and, well, I wouldn't say Method, but I can't really avoid getting into character.

Time
Alexandra Daddario
Dax Shepard

There was a best-selling book in the late '60s and '70s called 'The Adventurers' by Harold Robbins. The lead character's name was Dax. Anyone that's roughly my age that's named Dax is named from that book.

Age
Dax Shepard
Giancarlo Esposito

To be a character actor is to be open, to be a chameleon.

Giancarlo Esposito
Viggo Mortensen

It's always interesting to play a character that obviously has a secret.

Play
Viggo Mortensen
Rosamund Pike

The job of an actor is the same in all of them, really. I mean, you're just creating a character that you hope people will believe, so it doesn't make that much of a difference really.

People Hope
Rosamund Pike
Kevin Hart

My experiences in life are getting bigger and better. The more stuff I do, the more stuff I talk about - having kids, traveling, going through relationship problems, dealing with things in my own family. All that stuff builds character.

Family Life
Kevin Hart
Billy Graham

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

Nothing Wealth Health
Billy Graham
H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

Wisdom
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Theodore Roosevelt

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

Attitude Concerned Confidence Fulfillment
Theodore Roosevelt

I love those preliminary conversations about who a character is. You try on wigs, shoes and clothes. It's preferable when it's not about looking pretty. It can get a little dull to just be cute. We talk about things like, maybe my character can't afford these Christian Louboutins.

Love Shoes
Rachel McAdams
Robert Redford

I started as an actor in the theater playing a lot of character parts, and suddenly, I found myself in this place where it felt like I was getting locked into a kind of a stereotype, and it did bother me.

Robert Redford

I think in some ways, acting and writing are the same. You're getting inside the skin of someone else; you're creating their language and their actions. As a writer, you have to see the whole picture and the structure, and you have to understand every character.

Finn Wittrock
Bill Skarsgard

A character on screen that's the 'good guy' or the 'bad guy,' they're never interesting. There's got to be an internal struggle, the duality is important to find.

Good Struggles
Bill Skarsgard
Jim Parsons

I couldn't tell you a good, bad or ugly pilot just from reading it, but I can tell you a character I want to play.

Good
Jim Parsons
Paul Newman

If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.

Paul Newman

I was playing this character, Melchior Gabor, who was a rebel and who was a person who didn't let the world define him, and who stood up to authority and was this kind of revolutionary... And when I left 'Spring Awakening,' I came out of that experience feeling like... I had cultivated this side of my personality that hadn't existed before.

Personality Experience
Jonathan Groff
Matt Bomer

For every role, I brought certain elements of the character. Even on 'White Collar' over six years, I tried to keep the set fun and breezy and Howard Hawks-y and very of the tone of the show.

Fun
Matt Bomer
Gene Tierney

I loved to eat. For all of Hollywood's rewards, I was hungry for most of those 20 years.

Awards Being Yourself Personality Eating
Gene Tierney
Franklin P. Jones

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Warning Recognition Understanding Experience
Franklin P. Jones
Napoleon Bonaparte

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.

Good Greatness Zeal
Napoleon Bonaparte

Unlike other enduring characters such as 'Sherlock Holmes' or 'Tarzan,' being the 'Doctor' allows you a certain freedom that is both very demanding and very thrilling. It allows you to make the character using elements of yourself.

Doctor Freedom
David Tennant
Elisabeth Moss

There's nothing like getting yourself into character and seeing a different person. It really wears on your vanity.

Nothing
Elisabeth Moss
Dominique McElligott

The most fun part for an actor is the writing and the story and the character. That's very fulfilling.

Fun Writing
Dominique McElligott
Chris Farley

Basically, I only play one character; I just play him at different volumes.

Play
Chris Farley

This character matters so much to so many people. I want to get that right. I want to do it justice. I want people to believe in the character and have faith in the character and kids to grow up wanting to be Superman. Or, God forbid, there's people who are going through hardship and wishing that this character would turn up and save them.

Faith God Justice
Henry Cavill
Helena Bonham Carter

It was a challenge to be able to create a character without being able to use one's normal set of expressions. All the rubber and makeup attached to your face left you with only a modest range of facial movements.

Face
Helena Bonham Carter
Emilia Clarke

I've read all the 'Game of Thrones' books many times over, so I sometimes find it easier being on set, because it can be hard to get out of character.

Emilia Clarke
Donnie Yen

I gained a lot of confidence after 'IP Man' as being a true actor. I went on to tackle what it is an actor is supposed to do before a film. Do a lot of research, get into the character. That's what I did with 'Dragon.'

Confidence Research
Donnie Yen
Bill Skarsgard

I wouldn't want to be associated with one character, because I want to be able to do different roles.

Bill Skarsgard
Chris Cornell

I don't get in there and create a character. It's more of a voice that I hear living inside the music.

Music
Chris Cornell
Michael Sheen

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality.

Reality Play
Michael Sheen
Anne Frank

Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.

People Power
Anne Frank
Jean-Claude Van Damme

When you finish a film, if you believed in your character, you're empty.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

I just want to portray a very honest character that displays traits that people can truly relate to and can help them - the audience and myself because I learn from the characters as well - help them see themselves in a perspective that is outside of what they know already, and grow from that experience.

People Experience
Kristin Kreuk

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

Life People Strength
Leon Trotsky
Helen Rowland

A man can become so accustomed to the thought of his own faults that he will begin to cherish them as charming little personal characteristics.

Men Acceptance Admiration Assumptions
Helen Rowland
William Zabka

Sometimes you become a character, and sometimes the character becomes you.

William Zabka

Our landscapes connect us to our history; they are the source of our character as a peopl, as well as our health, our safety, and our prosperity. Natural resources enrich us economically, yes. But they also enrich us aesthetically and recreationally and culturally and spiritually.

Health History
Robert Kennedy, Jr.
Chris Hemsworth

Not often do you approach a character where people know more about him than you do.

People
Chris Hemsworth

After 30 years in the theater, I'm used to having a great amount of control over what I do. But with '24', you place your character's life in the writers' hands, and you have no idea what's going to happen until you're sent the next pages.

Greatness Life
Cherry Jones
Cillian Murphy

Then I wanted the character to be feminine as opposed to effeminate. Because it's easy to be camp or queen. Anyone can do that. What's difficult is to play feminine.

Cillian Murphy

If you're very open to watching the world go by, with people's different tics, you absorb it all without realizing it and find ways to put something into your character. I'm not sure I'm always aware I'm mimicking someone.

People World
Emily Blunt
Eli Manning

I like making fun of myself; I don't want to make fun of other people, so I don't mind doing something out of character that some people might not expect me to do.

People
Eli Manning

I'm not the kind of actress that goes home with the character. I mean, you're thinking about the work or the next day's scenes, but not staying in character. But as a film goes on, you become more and more fragile, emotionally. And physically too, actually.

Work Home
Natasha Richardson
John Candy

I think I may have become an actor to hide from myself. You can escape into a character.

John Candy
Mary Steenburgen

It's very easy to approach a character like that - a so-called strong woman who overcomes the odds - and give a one-note performance, playing that strength alone. Strength is only one thing a person has.

Strength Lonliness
Mary Steenburgen
Henry James

What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

Determination
Henry James
Jon Stewart

There is no such thing as an impartial jury because there are no impartial people. There are people that argue on the web for hours about who their favorite character on 'Friends' is.

People
Jon Stewart
Dwight L. Moody

Character is what a man is in the dark.

Dwight L. Moody
John Greenleaf Whittier

It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.

Acceptance Advice Conduct People
John Greenleaf Whittier
Helen Rowland

A man is like a cat; chase him and he will run - sit still and ignore him and he'll come purring at your feet.

Men Conduct Cats Comparisons
Helen Rowland

Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is beauty in the character. When there is beauty in the character, there is harmony in the home. When there is harmony in the home, there is order in the nation. When there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.

Beauty Peace Heart
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Allison Mack

Using clothes to transform was a huge part of my childhood. But also, I've been acting forever, and wardrobe changes the way you feel, so it totally indicates the character you're going to play.

Childhood
Allison Mack
John Cena

I don't play a character. It's totally just an extension of myself.

Play
John Cena

What you wear - and it always starts with your shoes - determines what kind of character you are. A woman who wears high heels carries herself very different to a girl who wears sneakers or sandals. It really helps determine how you carry yourself.

Shoes
Winona Ryder
Kyra Sedgwick

While it is challenging working with a kid, because they're so of the moment all the time. My acting style is to try to take something from my life that the character can relate to and that I can relate the character to.

Life Time
Kyra Sedgwick
Jon Voight

It's grown into a personal relationship, yeah. I'm crazy about Jerry. I think he's a unique character.

Jon Voight
Zoe Saldana

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

Zoe Saldana
Brendan Fraser

Burroughs was never really that pleased with the way popular culture and society treated his character. He tried to make a few movies of his own as a result, but they weren't very good.

Good Culture Society
Brendan Fraser
Alexis de Tocqueville

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

Value Money World
Alexis de Tocqueville

Allison Janney's character in 'The West Wing' was so rocking! I am a huge fan of Mary Louis Parker and her character in 'Weeds.' My manager says, 'you have to grow into yourself, Allison' because all the characters I want to play are, like, 39.

Allison Mack
Bruce Lee

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Power Knowledge
Bruce Lee

I think the character does tend to suit an episodic thing, because what's fun about him is that he doesn't care about anyone else, and it's very difficult for a main character - a lead character - in a movie to not care about anybody else.

Rowan Atkinson
Osama bin Laden

We treat them in the same way. Those who kill our women and innocent, we kill their women and innocent, until they refrain.

Men Attitude Conduct Pride
Osama bin Laden

Authenticity is everything! You have to wake up every day and look in the mirror, and you want to be proud of the person who's looking back at you. And you can only do that if you're being honest with yourself and being a person of high character. You have an opportunity every single day to write that story of your life.

Life
Aaron Rodgers
Mila Kunis

You want to be honest with a character and play it truthfully, and you want to be genuine with your character.

Mila Kunis
Nick Foles

When you are having a rough day... you think you are failing. But failure is a part of life. It's about building character and growing.

Life
Nick Foles

'Love Don't Let Me Down,' which is the original title of 'Country Strong,' was just as difficult emotionally as 'Tron' was physically. I play a country singer that basically gets on tour with Gwyneth Paltrow's character, who is one of the biggest country stars out there, and she's fallen down too many times and it's an intense emotional story.

Love Stars
Garrett Hedlund
Rami Malek

Not long after 'The Pacific,' I began shooting the comedy 'Larry Crowne,' which was also with Tom Hanks, who also directed and plays the title character.

Comedy
Rami Malek
Jim Parsons

I try to master every facet of a character in order to build a safety net for myself, so I can go on to take more risks to create someone really distinct.

Jim Parsons

Iago is one of the most liked characters in Shakespeare's canon, and he's the most evil, most extraordinarily manipulative person in history. He says the worst, most politically incorrect things, even for the time the play is set in - and yet audiences adore that character.

Time Wickedness History
Kelsey Grammer
Kyra Sedgwick

Sometimes when you do a part, the wall between you and the characters can be very porous. You can sort of move in and out of your character's persona and being. And that just couldn't happen on this one because of working with him.

Kyra Sedgwick

You wanna do a lot of backstory for your character - as an actor, you wanna research that. But on the show, it's fun to remain in that naive place as you go along, and be able to continue to discover things about your character as the writers come up with them.

Research
Alison Brie
Gary Oldman

You choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color.

Gary Oldman