Famous Quotes & Sayings

Etgar Keret

Making up characters and places and plots, unlike fixing your plumbing or doing dishes, is anything but practical or rational. I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right.

Etgar Keret

Before I started to make films, I didn't give much thought to the way the characters were physically positioned in the story world.

Ethan Hawke

One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.

Ernst Lubitsch

It is the task of the scenarist to invent little pieces of business that are so characteristic and give so deep an insight into his creatures, that their personalities clearly and organically unfold before the eyes of the audience so that the latter feel that the actions of these people are contingent upon their characters, that there exists some kind of a logical fate, and that nothing is left to mere accident or coincidence.

Ernst Mayr

A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation when the external barriers break down.

Errol Morris

I think calling someone a character is a compliment.

Ernest Rutherford

[From uranium] there are present at least two distinct types of radiation one that is very readily absorbed, which will be termed for convenience the α radiation, and the other of a more penetrative character, which will be termed the β radiation.

Ernest Rutherford

Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types of matter are being continually produced. .... The conclusion is drawn that these chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character.

Ernestine Rose

Away with that folly that her rights would be detrimental to her character - that if she were recognized as the equal to a man she would cease to be a woman!

Erin Cummings

A lot of the characters I end up playing have a certain degree of glamour or sexiness, but I like it when you can have some other element that makes it much more interesting.

Henry David Thoreau

Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.

Henry David Thoreau

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

Henry David Thoreau

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

Henry David Thoreau

We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.

Henry David Thoreau

Pity the man who has a character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is silent poor indeed.

Henry David Thoreau

How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?

Henry David Thoreau

Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate tolay them aside without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.

Henry David Thoreau

It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters.

H. L. Mencken

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.

H. L. Mencken

The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks. The minute it begins to out-whoop them it forfeits its character and becomes ridiculous.

Christian Slater

The movies I've made at a certain time of my life were exactly right for the stage of my life, the frame of mind I was in at the time. Each character I've had to play has been me in that time in my life

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.

Give me the character and I will forecast the event.

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

Dignity of position adds to dignity of character, as well as to dignity of carriage. Give us a proud position, and we are impelled to act up to it.

It is of very little use in trying to be dignified, if dignity is no part of your character.

No single character is ever so great that a nation can afford to form itself upon it. Imitation belittles. This appears in the instance of the Chinese. The Chinese are so many Confucii; in miniature. And so with the Jews. Moses, the lawgiver, is poorly represented by Moses, the old clothesman ; or even by Dives, the hanker.

The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.

Out of politics comes more uproar than progress. It is indeed surprising how little, comparatively, this noisy department of human affairs contributes to the world's prosperity. Political commotions upon the grandest scale, political events of astounding suddenness, political characters of the greatest ability, abound, but still, permanent results are rare, and we look in vain for a measure of public good corresponding in extent to the hideous rout which ushers it in. Progress but turns upon its pillow, and goes to sleep again.

There are some weaknesses that are peculiar and distinctive to generous characters, as freckles are to a fair skin.

Character is very much a matter of health.

Christa B. Allen

I feel like any experience you can have which adds to your repertoire of things you've done and can add to your character - I'm willing to try.

Christian Bale

I'm sure you find it fascinating. It's always interesting for everybody to look at people who've been pushed to the brink. You wonder how you would fare with that. Nobody's interested in somebody who doesn't ever really do anything. I don't have a choice in that. I will always go for those kinds of characters. Each one is a separate choice for me, but I think it's fairly natural to find yourself gravitating towards people who have done extraordinary things.