Playing Your Part Quotes & Sayings

I'm sorry I started all this by trying to fly and I'd take it back if I could but I can't, so please think of it from my point of view: if you die I will have a dead brother and it will be me instead of you who suffers.
Justin thought of his brother on that warm summer day, standing up on the windowsill holding both their futures, light and changeable as air, in his outstretched arms.
Of course, Justin thought, I'm part of his fate just as he's part of mine. I hadn't considered it from his point of view. Or from the point of view of the universe, either. It's just a playing field crammed full of cause and effect, billions of dominoes, each knocking over billions more, setting off trillions of actions every second. A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and my brother in Luton thinks he can fly.
The child nodded. A piano might fall on your head, he said, but it also might not. And in the meantime you never know. Something nice might happen. — Meg Rosoff

As any actor will tell you, the hardest thing to do is small parts, because you focus all your attention and concentration on that small part. When you're playing the lead part, you don't have time to think about the whole of it, so you just have to steam on and get on with it. — Colin Baker

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, lemme tell you. Those are big years. Everybody always thinks of it as a time of adolescence - just getting through to the real part of your life - but it's more than that. Sometimes your whole life happens in those years, and the rest of your life it's just the same story playing out with different characters. I could die tomorrow and have lived the main ups and downs of life. Pain. Loss. Love. And what you all so fondly refer to as wisdom. Wanna know the difference between adult wisdom and young adult wisdom? You have the ability to look back at your past and interpret it. I have the ability to look at my present and live it with my whole body. — Lidia Yuknavitch

Usually, when you are an ethnic person or a trans person, in your average, everyday, unsophisticated television show, you are there for that reason. And they clearly justify and overexplain why. You very rarely see a transgender actor playing the part of a grocery-store clerk without having to say, 'Oh, look at that trans person.' — B. D. Wong

I think that from the time you start playing sports as a child you see that your responsibility to your team is to play the best that you can play as an individual ... and yet, not take anything away from being part of a team. — Wayne Gretzky

Contours on the second half of a long putt have more impact on how the ball rolls because it's going slower. Adjust your speed if that last part is playing uphill or downhill. Don't get fooled by an early slope or break. — Ernie Els

Do you take pride in your hurt?' Samuel asked. 'Does it make you seem large and tragic? ... Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience ... there's all that fallow land, and here beside me is all that fallow man. It seems a waste. And I have a bad feeling about waste because I could never afford it. Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow? — John Steinbeck

What honor can there be without humility? What heights can be reached without being low? The pieces of a chariot are useless unless the work in accordance with the whole A man's life brings nothing unless he lives in accordance with the whole universe Playing one's part in accordance with the universe is true humility So whether you're a gem in the royal court or a stone on the common path If you accept your part with humility the glory of the universe will be yours — Laozi

I've done a few costume dramas, and people say, 'What was it like wearing the costumes? Did they really help you with your character?,' and most of the time it doesn't make any difference. You're wearing something a bit weird, and it's sort of uncomfortable, but it doesn't really have a huge impact on the part that you're playing. — Romola Garai

I would like to see you. But: I would only like to see you with your feeling space, and desire, the parents of bravery, and curiosity. I would like you to want to see me without you feeling seduced or pressured. I would like to see you without our playing games: for games are for winners and losers and I do not ever want to win against you, or for you to lose against me, and I do not want to lose against you or for you to win against me. For we are part of the whole, the main, as Donne said - and your gain is mine and my loss is yours. Love is about finding one's match, which means we shall touch our minds and hearts together at once, and never condescend or aim for any goal between us but the truth. — Waylon H. Lewis

You should dress her better, you know."
"I'm not interested in putting clothes on her," Adrian called as he steered me away.
"Watch it," I warned through gritted teeth, "or you might be the one with the wineglass in your face."
"I'm playing a part, little dhampir. One that's going to make sure you stay out of trouble." Adrian gave me a head-to-toe assessment. "That guy was right about the clothes, though. — Richelle Mead

Playing the part of a charitable soul was only for those who were afraid of taking a stand in life. It is always far easier to have faith in your own goodness than to confront others and fight for your rights. It is always easier to hear an insult and not retaliate than have the courage to fight back against someone stronger than yourself; we can always say we're not hurt by the stones others throw at us, and it's only at night - when we're alone and our wife or our husband or our school friend is asleep - that we can silently grieve over our own cowardice. — Paulo Coelho

For now, though, as long as he insists on giving in to mischievous impulses, such as hiding under the Great Council table during session, he must take his punishment."
"Oh, Daniel, you didn't." Legna tsked at the child, making his chubby cheeks turn a brilliant scarlet color.
"I didn't mean to. I was just playing hide and seek with Uncle Noah."
"Yes, well, next time perhaps you ought to begin the game by actually informing your uncle he is part of it instead of having him find out the hard way, eh? — Jacquelyn Frank

I shouldn't be jealous because it's not real
she's like a math problem, the kind where you got the right answer but didn't show any of your work. She is the right answer, but she didn't get there by going through anything difficult, by questioning, by doubting. She landed there by playing a part, but she's never done the work.
I'm still jealous. — Jackson Pearce

When you're playing the part of a saxophone or a trumpet player, both of which I have done, it would be nice to be able to play like John Coltrane, but you can't. Your job is to do something else. And I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think I'd be acting Niels Bohr any better if I went and studied physics for five years. — Stephen Rea

Your life-and everyone else in the Universe is playing the part that you have assigned to them. You can literally script any life that you desire, and the Universe will deliver to you the people, places, and events just as you decide them to be. For you are the creator of your own experience-you have only to decide it and allow it to be. — Esther Hicks

When you're playing music, say for instance, you're playing a part of the band and you're looking at your music, your horn is down into the stand. This way, it's up and it goes right on out to the audience, you know? — Billy Eckstine

In episodic television you'll have a good guy who's on every week and that's his show! He's the regular on it, and you're not going to be "gooder" than he is; I mean, he's the guy who's got to solve your problem! So if you're playing a good guy, you have to have a problem, and he's going to solve it for you. And the only really strong dramatic part is the heavy, because the meaner and crueler and rottener you are, the better the good guy looks when he whips ya' at the end because he always is gonna whip ya! So, the best dramatic guest shot is the heavy. — Leslie Nielsen

Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ... Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience. — John Steinbeck

It's true that old actors don't die, their parts get smaller. You're less likely to get the part, many parts, if you're playing people your age as opposed to people who are younger. There are fewer parts around. — Albert Finney

I think that you're casting away everything of you. You should feel betrayed that your blood kin would try to kill you, you're only pretending that you don't. You're playing a part, and sometimes you forget what's you and what's the other Miriel. You said you would be forsworn if you needed to be, my Lady, but you deny yourself every day for no reason at all. — Moira Katson

I chose the specialty of surgery because of Matron, that steady presence during my boyhood and adolescence. 'What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?' she said when I went to her for advice on the darkest day of the first half of my life.
I squirmed. How easily Matron probed the gap between ambition and expediency. 'Why must I do what is hardest?'
'Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?
'But, Matron, I can't dream of playing Bach ... I couldn't read music.
'No, Marion,' she said her gaze soft ... 'No, not Bach's 'Gloria'. Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you. — Abraham Verghese

The greatest part of each day, each year, each lifetime is made up of small, seemingly insignificant moments. Those moments may becooking dinner ... relaxing on the porch with your own thoughts after the kids are in bed, playing catch with a child before dinner, speaking out against a distasteful joke, driving to the recycling center with a week's newspapers. But they are not insignificant, especially when these moments are models for kids. — Barbara Coloroso

No, it's very comforting actually, to know that you're sitting in a long legacy of actresses who've played the role. I'm absolutely all for absorbing all of those influences, so you understand the pedigree of the part as much as you understand the figure in history ... because you are playing the part. You don't say: "Gosh, I want to play Peter Sellers ... " because you can sort of do that in your own bathroom. — Cate Blanchett

I imagine you will always be pinched for money, for time, for a place to work. But I think you will do it. And believe me, it is not a new problem. You are in good company ... Your touch is the uncommon touch; you will speak only to the thoughtful reader. And more times than once you will ask yourself whether such readers really exist at all and why you should go on projecting your words into silence like an old crazy actor playing the part of himself to an empty theater. — Wallace Stegner

This is what happens when you are on the wrong side of 40. Young adults, who could be your children, are now working with you. I was playing their parents or mentor. I started to think: Oh, I am not part of that group any more. — Geoffrey Rush

You are the vibrational writers of the script of your life, and everyone else in the Universe is playing the part that you have assigned to them. — Esther Hicks

It has to be said that the bad guys are often more interesting than the good guys because you get to indulge part of your nature that hopefully gets subsumed most of the time. But I just like playing interesting characters, and variety's the spice of that, as it is with life, I suppose. — David Tennant

Papa taught me that love was all about giving & never, ever taking. When you take something back, it diminishes love. It makes it less than what it is or ever could be. When you hold something back, out of vanity, pride or fear, you are not really loving...you are merely playing & wasting your precious heart's power. When you expect something in return for your love, you will never get what you need."

From Part I. Sojourners All — Giacomino Nicolazzo

You don't know how to respond," Ferrin said. "I'll make it easy for you. The safest course of action for your young rebellion would be to toss me off the tallest cliff you can find. I have played a perilous game for years
trading secrets, telling lies, finding leverage, earning trust only to betray it. I got away with an eccentric lifestyle among Maldor's elite by hiding much of what I learned and proving myself too valuable to kill. It was a precarious, unforgiving game. When I released you from Felrook, I miscalculated, and I lost Game over. Bridges burned. But the game is part of my nature. I don't think I can stop playing until I stop breathing. — Brandon Mull

Part of an actor's job is to find correlations between your own life and the life of the person you are playing. — Daniel Radcliffe

When we are youths in the Dominican, we pick up bats and balls because baseball is part of what we grow up with. The fun feeling you get playing keeps your head up when you encounter difficult times. — Vladimir Guerrero

Part of an actor's job is to actually adopt the world-view of the character she is playing and to tell the story from that vantage point. If an actor represses large aspects of their personality, they will have a severely limited range and castability. Great actors cultivate effortless access to their subpersonalities. Many acting teachers call this 'freeing your instrument.' — Jack Lemmon

When my son Lowell was eight years old, one day he and I had just finished playing. Tired and exhausted, we were lying on the bed talking. He sat up in the bed and started to trace his finger over the scar behind my neck. He asked me with concern in his voice,
'Daddy, how you got this cut behind your neck?'

I hesitated for a while, wondering how much I should tell him, or if I should even tell him at all. I decided to tell him some of it, leaving out the part about the shooting. So I told him,
'I got that from fighting with one of my friends.'

Lowell didn't respond right away. After a moment of silence and tracing his finger over the scar, my son said something to me that I had never even considered up to that point. He said,
'Daddy, your friend tried to kill you! — Drexel Deal

I will give you a little hint," Emma said with a wry smile. "A whore's trick, but a good one. It's a part that you're playing, like a grand actress on the stage. It isn't you. It has nothing to do with you. You're simply using your body in service to something necessary. You can smile and flirt and dance and pretend you're someone entirely different, and it won't matter. You, the real you, will still be safe inside. — Anne Stuart

That's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you'd have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines. — Catherynne M Valente

But this month is all about CITY OF JASMINE which I hope you already have in your hot little hands. My favorite review snippet? KIRKUS REVIEWS said it's "part screwball comedy".
I can't tell you how much time I spent with Carole Lombard and William Powell and Irene Dunne when I was writing it. I adore the 30s comedies for their light-hearted take on relationships and adventure - and the glamorous settings and occasional dash of intrigue only heighten the magic. (Did you know that Nicholas Brisbane from my Lady Julia series was named for THE THIN MAN's Nick Charles? And apologies to Dashiell Hammett, but I fell in love with the film long before I read the book and appreciated how much it had been lightened in the adaptation!) So when you're reading CITY OF JASMINE, give some thought to who you'd like to see playing Evie and Gabriel - I'd love to hear who you'd cast in your own production. — Deanna Raybourn

You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character. — Julie Benz

After the first day of practice, there's not one guy who's playing at 100 percent or who feels great. Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day - it just hurts. — Tom Brady

My advice to any actor who's playing, quote, unquote, "extra" to think of it more like Stanislavski did. It's not a small part. You are the lead in the movie, in your own movie. — Harvey Keitel

One day I was in the studio with my cousin. My dad was on tour at the time, so just for fun I recorded some stuff with my cousin. We were just playing around. After my dad got back, one day he played what we recorded. He heard my part and was like, "Who is that?" My cousin was like, "Uh, that's your son!" So he was like, "That's hot. You wanna make a record?" — Lil' Romeo

You have to ignore risks, put your brain on hold and follow your instincts, even when your head insists you do otherwise. Sometimes you got burned. I've signed many times. Roasted once or twice. You have to live with the fire. Because if you start thinking too much or playing safe, you're lost to its wondrous charms forever. You become part of the real world again, the mundane, the ordinary, from where there's no escape. (The Cardinal to Capac Raimi) — Darren Shan

When you have spent an important part of your life playing Let's Pretend, it's often easy to see symbolism where none exists. — Gene Tierney

The Thirties had seen the first generation of American industrial designers; until the Thirties, all pencil sharpeners looked like pencil sharpeners - your basic Victorian mechanism, perhaps with a curlicue of decorative trim. After the advent of the designers, some pencil sharpeners looked as though they'd been put together in wind tunnels. For the most part, the change was only skin-deep; under the streamlined chrome shell, you'd find the same Victorian mechanism. Which made a certain kind of sense, because the most successful American designers had been recruited from the ranks of Broadway theater designers. It was all a stage set, a series of elaborate props for playing at living in the future. — William Gibson

Do you not comprehend this in America, how your unions have been all but destroyed in the last 30 years? Do you not understand why your local US Postal Service offices are cracked, neglected, and almost derelict buildings, with their staffs downsizing and limiting their days of service? The corporately owned US Congress is destroying the postal service as part of its act, playing you for a fool while wearing a two-party (two-headed) monster mask. One sadistic party acts as a wrecking ball hurled at a wall of political inertia that is the second and masochistic party. — John Hogue

Everybody is playing some part, knowing perfectly well that this is not what he or she is supposed to be. This creates a rift, an anxiety, and that anxiety destroys all your possibilities of relaxing, of trusting, of loving, of having any communion with anybody - a friend, a beloved. You become isolated. You become, with your own actions, self-exiled, and then you suffer. So — Osho

There are moments in the life of old liars who have been play-acting all their lives when they are so carried away by the part they're playing that they actually do weep and tremble with excitement, in spite of the fact that at that very moment (or second later) they could have whispered to themselves: 'you're lying, you shameless old fool! Now, too, you're just acting a part in spite of all your "sacred" wrath and "sacred" moment of your wrath.' Dmitry frowned threateningly and looked at his father with indescribable contempt. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

People who know your work and know your personality, they know your strengths and weaknesses. A director like Guillermo del Toro, he knows more about me than I do. I trust him when he tells me what part I'm going to be playing in something, because he's envisioned that that can only be done by me. He knows it. — Doug Jones

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshiping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Don't let fear dictate your decisions. Take a flying leap of faith. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Go all in with God. Go all out for God. — Mark Batterson

When a lot of athletes get done playing, they end up in some really tough positions. They have a hard time transitioning because their identity is wrapped up in who they are as a player and what they do rather than who they can be in Christ. We desire to help people understand the invitation that God has given each one of us as Christ followers to be a part of this global redemptive story. If you can't give your life to something with meaning and purpose of that magnitude then there's nothing there. — Aaron Kampman

Every day try to help uplift physically, mentally, or spiritually suffering people, as you would help yourself
or your family. If, instead of living in the misery-making selfish way, you live according to the laws of God, then, no matter what small part you may be playing on the stage of life, you will know that you have been playing your part correctly, as directed by the Stage Manager of all our destinies. Your part, however small, is just as important as the biggest parts in contributing to the success of the Drama of Souls on the Stage of Life. Make a little money and be satisfied with it by living a simple life and expressing your ideals, rather than make lots of money and have worries without end. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Every species has a dinner date as part of courting ritual. A woman who won't let you pay for dinner is rejecting your courtship. She may think she's playing fair, or that she's being a feminist, but a very deep level, she knows that she's crossing you off her list of possibilities. — Jennifer Crusie