Character That Starts Quotes & Sayings

Once the audience has to use themselves to cross the distance to the character, that's what's really exciting. That's when it starts to be a discussion between the art form and the audience, and that's fun stuff. — Dallas Roberts

Adrien Bach, main character from The Maker:
You know, when you're a kid, you think you're going to grow up to be something special, do something important. You're not going to be a regular Joe like everybody else. But then you get out there and life starts to hit you. It hits you so many times, eventually you just can't get up anymore. Or won't.
And then you just don't know. Those dreams seem to fade away, and suddenly you're not sure who you are anymore. — Wes Moore

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. — Jennifer Aniston

When I look at a person, or a character, it is in every case the beginning of an endless journey. And I don't suppose I know where that starts. I know that I have to, like every other person, make decisions and have opinions. But I'm real careful to not judge crassly or cheaply someone else's life. — William Hurt

I tend to relate to a character in terms of the arc: what's interesting is where he starts versus where he ends up. — Edward Norton

It starts with the writing. We have to think of all these characters - we have to treat them all equally. We have to think of them as having an interior life and having motivations. When I'm drawing female characters, I'm looking for that. I'm looking for subtext. I'm looking for ways to make the reader relate to them in a way that goes beyond the pure aesthetic value. You know, just drawing an attractive woman really gets kind of boring after a while. — Cliff Chiang

My character in 'Running With Scissors' is manic-depressive. She starts out as a wonderfully eccentric person, and then descends into a terrible illness. — Annette Bening

In the case of 'Sweet Tooth,' and in the case of a lot of stuff I do, it all starts with the image. It may be something I sketch in my sketchbooks - something that reoccurs in the sketchbooks. Eventually, a character or story line starts to grow out of that. — Jeff Lemire

The fair-haired man was one of those people in whose character there is at first sight a certain obstinacy. Before you can open your mouth, they are already prepared to argue and, it seems, will never agree to anything that is clearly contrary to their way of thinking, will never call a stupid thing smart, and in particular will never dance to another man's tune; but it always ends up that there is a certain softness in their character, that they will agree precisely to what they had rejected, will call a stupid thing smart, and will then go off dancing their best to another man's tune - in short, starts out well, ends in hell. — Nikolai Gogol

I think it would be self-indulgent to go, "Oh, I'm going to make this character different by giving him a quirk of some kind." I don't think that serves the story, particularly. But even very similar scenes with a different set of actors, a different set of circumstances, it starts to evolve as a different character. — David Tennant

Kids kill a show! It's, like, a fun concept when the character is pregnant, but then if a show runs for a while, I'm sorry, but it gets annoying when it starts to talk. You get a child actor in there, and unless that child actor is freakin' awesome, it's going to be annoying. — Eliza Coupe

A criminal trial is like a Russian novel: it starts with exasperating slowness as the characters are introduced to a jury, then there are complications in the form of minor witnesses, the protagonist finally appears and contradictions arise to produce drama, and finally as both jury and spectators grow weary and confused the pace quickens, reaching its climax in passionate final argument. — Clifford Irving

Our thoughts are causes. You sow a thought, you reap an action. You sow an action, you reap a habit. You sow a habit, you reap a character. You sow a character, you reap a destiny. It all starts with a thought. — Shiv Khera

When you start playing a character every day for seven weeks, it suddenly starts becoming easier — Carey Mulligan

There's no tipping point where you become what you are. Character development starts when you're growing up. Your socioeconomic background contributes. The attitude that gets you through some communities doesn't work in corporate America. It's not an excuse, but it does help explain — Maurice Clarett

There starts to be an overlap between you and the character. — Stephen Collins

In all our perceptions, from vision to hearing, to the pictures we build of people's character, our unconscious mind starts from whatever objective data is available to us - usually spotty - and helps to shape and construct the more complete picture we consciously perceive. — Leonard Mlodinow

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar. — George Saunders

There are no new plots, but there are plenty of fresh new characters with whom you can grab the reader. Characterization is the key to successful commercial fiction. Characterization starts with goal, motivation, and conflict. Character — Debra Dixon

Modern politics is like watching a film with only bad guys. It soon starts to get really boring, because one of the points of stories is that they should have some sort of redeeming character, or, at the very least, trick the viewer into believing such. But seeing the world nowadays has no such effect, its bad guys VS bad guys VS bad guys, and all you can think about is how the hell can I switch off this horrible depravity — Martijn Benders

I believe the only way a writer can keep himself up to the mark is by examining each story quite coldly before he starts writing it and asking himself if it is all right as a story. I mean, once you go saying to yourself, 'This is a pretty weak plot as it stands, but I'm such a hell of a writer that my magic touch will make it okay,' you're sunk. If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major characters, not even if you have the rest of the troop talk their heads off about them. — P.G. Wodehouse

I never really approach any project or story thinking of themes first or what a certain character 'represents.' Maybe other writers do, but for me, it just starts with the characters and a certain emotion I want to convey. It usually isn't until I get deeper into a book and look back a bit that I start to see the themes, etc. — Jeff Lemire

I'm a natural blonde, but my hair has been almost every color you can imagine. As an actor, I like to get into my character as much as I can, and often that starts with the color of my hair. — Jennifer Morrison

However," Bob continued, and the word came down like a sledgehammer, "there is a line at which a likable bad boy becomes a nasty entitled bastard whom the public would rather see hung out to dry in the street than pay to watch prance about a stage in his bloomers. And when somebody starts abusing their fans, making an absolute arse of themselves in public places, and alienating the people who paid for their bloody Ferrari, they may consider that line crossed."

Lainie wondered if an actual "Hallelujah" chorus had appeared in the doorway, or if it was just the sound of her own glee.

She still had no idea why she was the privileged audience to this character assassination, but she warmly appreciated it. — Lucy Parker

Someone's sexuality shouldn't define who they are as a person. And I hope one day the world stops focusing so much on who people have in their beds and starts basing their opinions on people's character instead. — Jaclyn Osborn

There's a point I can get to where I start writing character and then through the dialogue, after all of this preparation, the thing starts to feel like it's a character developing through the dialogue. A lot of character traits do come from writing dialogue, but I have to be ready to do it. — Charlie Kaufman

You've got this world, these pathologists that are, day in and day out, taking apart bodies, coming up with theories about how they died and how to better serve the community. At the same time these people have lives outside and families and my character in particular, he has a fiance and things are going well for him, so you've got to show that nice warm compassionate side at the same time you've got to show the steely, icy cool of a doctor. Not only that, but a doctor who gets a bit of a God complex and starts killing people for sport. — Milo Ventimiglia

One day, my twin sister Sidra and I pranked Tyler Perry on the set of 'For Better or Worse.' I made her dress up as me and do a scene as if she were my character Angela. Tyler says, 'Action!' and my sister starts acting. It was horrible. — Tasha Smith

I never like to go out of character when filming starts. I fear that if I do, I might not be able to pick it up again. — Richard C. Armitage

Character starts with the alphabet. Letters: words: sentences Character is a function of language - a collection of errors and deviations that resonate with certain behaviors. As with every other element in fiction, it is a record of a writer's decisions. — Noy Holland

That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from. — Matt Lauria

I love the character of Jaime Lannister. He's just so complex - a character that we love to hate - but it's a lot more complex than hatred. It starts off, and he seems so arrogant and so smug. — Gwendoline Christie

Having plastic surgery is pathetic. You don't look any younger; you look well for a bit until it starts going again, but it takes all the character out. — Judy Parfitt

Pastor and radio broadcaster Tony Evans says, "If you want a better world, composed of better nations, inhabited by better states, filled with better counties, made up of better cities, comprised of better neighborhoods, illuminated by better churches, populated by better families, then you'll have to start by becoming a better person." That's always where it starts - with me, with you. If we focus on personal character, we make the world a better place. If we do that our entire lives, we've done the best thing we can do to improve our world. The — John C. Maxwell

What is a scene? a) A scene starts and ends in one place at one time (the Aristotelian unities of time and place-this stuff goes waaaayyyy back). b) A scene starts in one place emotionally and ends in another place emotionally. Starts angry, ends embarrassed. Starts lovestruck, ends disgusted. c) Something happens in a scene, whereby the character cannot go back to the way things were before. Make sure to finish a scene before you go on to the next. Make something happen. — Janet Fitch

He starts with the character's eyes and by the time he moves to her hair, a mess of blonde curls, I realize he's drawing me. Superheroes. You can finally have those super powers you want. — Kasie West

Delicious days ahead for solitude and writing and, oh yes, the holiday meal with family. Live with my characters until term starts in 2012! — Stella Atrium

My creative workday starts with strong breakfast tea and a few minutes of journaling, both of which help me get my head in the story. So much of story-building for me involves immersing myself in the character and situation I'll be working on, just the way an actor does when playing a role. — Therese Fowler

Filmmaking is finding a piece of granite and you start to chip away and then you have the shape of a head, the shape of the arm, you can see the shape of the face and the face starts to gather character. You have to find it. — Jason Reitman

There's so much I can't read because I get so exasperated. Someone starts describing the character boarding the plane and pulling the seat back. And I just want to say, Babe, I have been downtown. I have been up in a plane. Give me some credit. — Amy Hempel

People are expecting me to be a certain way all the time. It's not like if I come in here with a totally different personality and right before the camera starts they see this new character. It confuses everything. Life has a consensus reality to it and if you use that to your advantage it makes it much easier. — Richard Gere

[Success] always starts with the material; it always starts with the truth and honesty of the characters that you read in the screenplay and that's rarely something that can be remedied if it's simply not there by the time you shoot the film. Thank God we had that. — Leonardo DiCaprio

At what point does character-playing become habit, something for which we are grateful because it allows us to go through the world with the ease that comes from being predictable to ourselves, even if that predictability takes the form of neurosis, hysteria, depression? And at what point does that habit turn darkly into addiction? I wiped my hands clean. We are so desperate to be explicable to ourselves, to rely on ourselves, that we need to believe a certain version of who we are even when evidence starts to mount that the version is a lie, even when the part of us which is not tamed by habit strains to break free and overwhelm the tired, repetitive creature that our character has become, mouldering at the edges. — Kamila Shamsie

Many a real genius is lost in the fictitious character of the Gentleman. I am the most inconsistent, changeable being so full of fits and starts. — Thomas Gainsborough

My process is messy and non-linear, full of false starts, fidgets, and errands that I suddenly need to run now; it is a battle to get something - anything - down on paper. I doodle in sketchbooks: bits of ideas, fragments of sentences, character names, single lines of dialogue with no context. — Ellen Klages

Some authors, when starting a novel, imagine a place first. Others, a character starts taking shape in their head. I start with a hook, a situation, a 'what if.' — Linwood Barclay