Portray Quotes & Sayings

Pain seems to be easier, or melancholy seems to be easier to portray in a character. I don't know if that's because I'm a human being or because I'm an Irishman or both. — Colin Farrell

Whom would you like to put throught a table next? The entire cast of New Moon. They're trying to portray vampires, but they look like a bunch of sissy models. — Sheamus

The artist, viewing his fellows through his personal vision, has through the ages attempted to portray what he sees and to present his understanding of it. Censorship in his case has perpetrated heavy and sometimes reprehensible blunders. — Hollis Alpert

A lot happens in our everyday life, but it always happens within the same routine, and more than anything else it has changed my perspective of time. For, while previously I saw time as a stretch of terrain that had to be covered, with the future as a distant prospect, hopefully a bright one, and never boring at any rate, now it is interwoven with our life here and in a totally different way. Were I to portray this with a visual image it would have to be that of a boat in a lock: life is slowly and ineluctably raised by time seeping in from all sides. Apart from the details, everything is always the same. And with every passing day the desire grows for the moment when life will reach the top, for the moment when the sluice gates open and life finally moves on. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Just as much as the media portray child sexual exploitation as being a 'hidden' crime, then that is no less of a case with child physical abuse. — Stephen Richards

I'm definitely not a dancer. I can move well, but it's more about the acting and the singing for me. Acting and singing are completely different, so I can't say which one I love better because I love them both. I love acting because I get to play different characters. But I also love my music because I get to portray me. — Vanessa Hudgens

A lot of the time, as an actor, you don't have the freedom to change what your lines are, and they can often be very unnatural or difficult to portray in a real light. — John Francis Daley

If you look at the range of Hollywood movies playing in most cities in the developing world, you'd hate the America they portray, too. — Mark Steyn

Aplomb. I had managed to portray myself as a good Jew and, — Jon Ronson

I mean, movies in general tend to sort of portray time, space and identity as these very solid things. Time moves forward. Space is what it is. You are you, and you're always you. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

There are many ways to portray darkness and evil and it isn't all in being mean and tough. — Mat McNerney

[The media's] fantasy of an America bristling with racists allows them to portray any criticism of our massively incompetent and dangerous president as just another sad episode of oh-so-typical white racism. — Ann Coulter

As a general rule, it is difficult for people in public life to change their minds. There is an immediate rush to portray politicians as "flip-floppers" when they shift position on anything, even if they do so following a careful consideration of an issue rather than a meeting with a pollster. — Anonymous

Movies portray men as tough guys. — Geoffrey Canada

I don't like James Bond. They made him a super hero, but he is just an agent, a human being. In my movies, secret agents are more realistic, I didn't want to portray them in the most glowing colours. — King Hu

I often feel like that with the way I portray myself I come off as looking much worse than any of the other characters. I guess it might also be worth noting that anyone I've had as a main character in a story I've written has had full knowledge that I am a writer who writes about the people in her life. — Marie Calloway

On the political Right, the erosion of state power by international capitalism seems natural; on the political Left, rudderless revolutions portray themselves as virtuous. In the twenty-first century, anarchical protest movements join in a friendly tussle with global oligarchy, in which neither side can be hurt since both see the real enemy as the state. — Timothy Snyder

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. — Jerzy Kosinski

I always want to portray veterans in a positive light, and since I got into acting full time, I've made that part of my goal. — Jon Huertas

Caleb taught me a few things about starting fights I can't win. He would want me to use my head and exploit anything I have to offer to get what I want. I force myself to portray calmness and sorrow. The sadness comes easy. — C.J. Roberts

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me. — John Cleese

I hide my true feelings to avoid causing you trouble or pain, I act strong to show you that I'm not unreliable, I hold my tears back to show you that I'm happy but what hurts the most is knowing the fact that I'm not all these things I portray to be. — Harriet Morgan

Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently? — Michael Crichton

Finally, this story was set in a dire time, a deadly serious time, and the world of the first-century Jew under the rule of the Romans would not have been one that easily inspired mirth. It's more than a small anachronism that I portray Joshua having and making fun, yet somehow, I like to think that while he carried out his sacred mission, Jesus of Nazareth might have enjoyed a sense of irony and the company of a wisecracking buddy. This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone's faith; however, if one's faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do. My thanks to the many people who helped in the — Christopher Moore

The literary artist will ... portray what he knows, and little else. Imagination is built upon knowledge, and his dreams will rest upon his facts. He is worth to the world just about what he has learned from it, and no more. — Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

Life might be stranger than fiction, but fiction allows many writers to more accurately portray life to their readers. — Jaime Buckley

Permit me to bypass the entire nature vs. nurture "is gender really built-in?" debate with one simple observation: Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Now, we know God doesn't have a body, so the uniqueness can't be physical. Gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us. God doesn't make generic people; he makes something very distinct - a man or a woman. In other words, there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God's heart. — John Eldredge

Violence is so terribly fast ... the most perverse thing about the movies is the way they portray it in slow motion, allowing it to be something sensuous ... the viewer's lips slightly wet as the scene plays out. Violence is nothing like that. It is lightning fast, chaotic, and totally intangible. — Jim Carroll

All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new. — Sherman Alexie

My dream role is to portray someone like James Baldwin. I've always been a fan of his writing, and I feel like he's one of our unsung heroes. He's been pretty much forgotten, and I think he needs to be recognized. He had to go all the way to Europe to find recognition and acceptance, and I'd just like to bring him to the forefront. — Michael K. Williams

I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute. — Michel De Montaigne

Some parents were nervous about how they would portray everything, ... At a picnic the moms put on for the team and coaches, I said that all the reality shows are turning around and showing good things, not bad things. — Dick Butkus

All writers write about themselves, just as the old storytellers chose to tell stories that spoke to and about themselves. They call it the world, but it is themselves they portray. The world of which they write is like a mirror that reflects the inside of their hearts, often more truly than they know. — Jane Yolen

In order to depict a man one must understand him, and to understand him one must be like him; in order to portray his psychological activities one must be able to reproduce them in oneself. To understand a man one must have his nature in oneself. — Otto Weininger

I don't have to sympathize or empathize with a human being in order to be able to portray them. I mean, some of the greatest roles that actors have been able to play haven't been the most endearing on screen. — Dustin Lance Black

We have this sort of false self we portray over the internet. It's a facade of highlights we believe our peers will deem noteworthy. — Chris Matakas

You have to question a cinematic culture that preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario, which is both complicit and complex. It's misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman's sexual presentation of self. — Ryan Gosling

Cabinet is a conscious, explicit attempt to portray the Doctor himself as myth. "He's a mischief, a leprechaun, a boojum," says one character, bookseller and collector of incunabula, Syme. "The Doctor is a myth. He's straight out of Old English folklore, typical trickster figure really."29 Neither part of an ongoing narrative, nor specifically located within the series' past, Cabinet is in a position to challenge the portrayal of the Doctor. — Anthony Burdge, Jessica Burke, Kristine Larsen

When you're photographing anything to do with war and conflict you're photographing something impossible. Everything you do is just clumsy and stupid and half witted. Because it is impossible to portray the full width and breadth of everything that you are up against. — Simon Norfolk

But being able to talk to so many patients from so many walks of life gives a tremendous window into people's lives. This is not to say I want to write about individual patients, but I think that after listening to the concerns of people who are so different from me, I can more realistically portray characters who are so different from me. — Daniel Mason

To portray an iconic character has been brilliant in itself, and to be able to do that on a show like 'Once Upon a Time' enhances that because the show puts a spin on characters and makes them very different and puts core values that are very different that aren't in the original fairy tales a lot of people relate to. — Robbie Kay

What shall I say further? Shall I not stop short and leave to your imaginations to portray the tragic deeds of war? Is it not enough that I here leave it even to unexperience to fancy the hardships, the anxieties, the dangers, even of the best life of a soldier? — Deborah Sampson

It is hard to describe the thrill of creative joy which the artist feels when the conviction seizes her that at last she has caught the very soul of the character she wishes to portray, in the music and action which reveal it. — Maria Jeritza

Often times, if a character is pretty straightforward, he or she is not as interesting to portray. — Jonathan Jackson

The Romany culture is not really in the media that much and Jack Thorne wanted to portray that. — Yasmin Paige

Hollywood is a bit of a publicity game where it's constantly trying to portray things and put up this image and I was not interested in that. — Terry Crews

Words are never frail. They have all the powers to change the personality and features of a man. The way he relates and depicts the things are based on the words he discovers. At one point where words portray happiness for someone, it also counts for the tears to some. The day we comprehend the strength of words, we would choose them more closely and patiently. Where we would prefer silence more over words. If words are our strength, they are our weakness too. — Nishikant

When you try to portray people's lives, you try to make sure you don't portray them as clowns and that you give them a level of dignity. You don't try to change their persona, but you try to understand that they had unique problems, set in a century that you don't live. — Kevin Costner

We are also creatures of romance. Books love to portray us as the mysterious visitor in the night that you invite into your bedroom and then your bed. — Isabelle Rowan

As an actor, what you dream of is being able to portray people that people empathize with and understand and really feel for. — Daniel Sharman

I want my photographs not only to be real but to portray the essence of my subjects also. In order to do that, you have to be patient. — Mary Ellen Mark

I don't know what story y'all trying to get out of me. I don't know what image y'all trying to portray of me. But it don't matter what y'all think, what y'all say about me because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face - my family that I love, that's all that really matter to me. — Marshawn Lynch

I don't worry about how accurately I convey my personality. I learned early on that it's almost impossible to accurately portray yourself. — Chester Brown

The parent characters that I portray are Indian because I grew up in an Indian household. Having said that, I feel like people of all cultures would relate to those parents. — Lilly Singh

What pen can describe this scene of marvellous horror; what pencil can portray it? — Jules Verne

'Swan Lake' is the most difficult thing to portray for a female ballet dancer; it really requires such specific qualities of articulation, agility, strength, and the arm work is something that takes a lot of training. — Benjamin Millepied

What we're supposed to do as actors is be able to portray real human beings and emotions. And if you grow up in this bubble of showbiz and you only know people who make movies, you don't really have an understanding of the world outside. — Emily Browning

In essence, individuals more concerned with portraying their own uniqueness were more likely to select an alcoholic beverage not yet ordered at their table in an effort to demonstrate that they were in fact one of a kind. What these results show is that people are sometimes willing to sacrifice the pleasure they get from a particular consumption experience in order to project a certain image to others. When people order food and drinks, they seem to have two goals: to order what they will enjoy most and to portray themselves in a positive light in the eyes of their friends. — Dan Ariely

When I write short fiction or novellas, I like to leave a hint of the fantastic, of the unreal. If you write a completely fantastic novel with ghosts and everything, the effect is less powerful than if you portray an absolutely realistic situation and, in the middle of this, you put a layer of fantasy, of mystery. — Antonio Munoz Molina

I feel like most actors just dig and dig and work and work in whatever way they do to try to do as much as they can to portray a character in the limited time they have to play it, whether it's six months or one month or one week of work, you know. — Katherine Waterston

Here lies the sense of literary creation to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in kindly mirrors of future times ... To find in objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern ... — Vladimir Nabokov

I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west. — Orhan Pamuk

The musician of disordered sound, the poet of decomposed language, the painter and sculptor of the fragmented visual and tactile world: they all portray the break up of the self and, through the rearrangement and reassemble of the fragments, try to create new structures that possess wholeness, perfection, new meaning. — Heinz Kohut

There's a way of negotiating how you portray your private life publicly that I've never had the skill to do. — Gina McKee

When you're guest-starring on another show, it really requires you to jump through hoops in a way, because you're servicing the stories of the main characters. You have to be able to portray a lot of different elements. You show up and get on board and get on their journey; you have to be flexible as to what they need for the role. — Kim Dickens

In a sense I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny. — Lady Gaga

I know that it's easier to portray a world that's filled with cynicism and anger, where problems are solved with violence. What's a whole lot tougher is to offer alternatives, to present other ways conflicts can be resolved, and to show that you can have a positive impact on your world. To do that, you have to put yourself out on a limb, take chances, and run the risk of being called a do-gooder. — Jim Henson

I think in general, and in the film industry, that idea of having only one type of girl is changing. There's more variety because it's the world we live, and we want to portray that. — Stephanie Sigman

I don't have a problem with the media focusing on bad things happening. That's our job, after all. But I think it's incomplete, and I would even say it's inaccurate, to only portray a place through its tragedies. — Annia Ciezadlo

There are parents who are really angry that I decided to portray people who have come into the country illegally as decent human beings. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Everybody wants to be a Bond villain. That is the coolest. To be able to portray a Bond villain, that is the feather in any actor's cap. — Steve Carell

In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations! Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions. Nor is it necessary to portray many main characters. Let two people be the center of gravity in your story: he and she. — Anton Chekhov

Totalizing and dangerous views of "American culture" and "nationhood" can be found in current attempts to portray "Christian values" or particular constructions of "family values" as constitutive of "American culture" and "the American way of life." Views of "American culture" that picture American society as comprised of "free individuals," and of American institutions as already fair and egalitarian, obscure the ways in which various forms of institutional discrimination impede the entry and flourishing of members of marginalized groups. — Uma Narayan

'Thirteen' was really hard on my family. I wrote this movie about them and their flaws and imperfections and what it was like growing up. It was from one kid's perspective and not a well rounded one. You get older, and it's like, 'How dare I portray my father as being a totally vacant, careless schmuck?' — Nikki Reed

How could he have been so stupid, so blind? David pictured after Goliath could be no one but the biblical David, a special individual. He was not content to portray one man; he was seeking universal man, Everyman, all of whom,from the beginning of time,
had faced a decision to strike for freedom — Irving Stone

For years now, the fake European 'left' is trying to portray European citizens as victims of the US imperialism. It is even trying to make the world feel sorry for those European workers who do not get a fair deal from their governments! It is thoroughly absurd. — Andre Vltchek

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray ... I am myself the matter of my book. — Michel De Montaigne

It seems like there's a lot of people who just do not understand satire. They think it's weird. There's people who just don't understand you portray something or just explore a character, it means you're condoning it, saying this is the way to live. — Mike Judge

Art reflects society. Cinema doesn't dictate - you portray what the society demands. — Sonam Kapoor

There is no "can't" in martial arts. It is perfectly all right for students to state that they are "still working on it", "have not mastered it yet", or "are trying as best they can" as all of those sentiments reflect willingness and perseverance. It is not all right, on the other hand, to verbally or physically portray reluctance, vacillation, or defect. — Lawrence Kane

Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public ... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant. — Dick Cheney

I fall in love with contradictions without understanding. I can't really portray them unless I do. So in a roundabout way I have to fall in love, it's my duty. If love is about understanding and understanding is compassion and compassion is love, I have to have compassion towards the world. — Joseph Fiennes

When I do my makeup, it kind of helps me get into the character that I'm trying to portray. — Ashley Wagner

Portray [people with mental illness] sympathetically, and portray them in all the richness and depth of their experience as people, and not as diagnoses. — Elyn Saks

The first state an actor experiences onstage is the one he just experienced in life. One needs great courage not to portray this experience. One must surrender entirely to the power of one s artistic nature. It will do all the necessary things. Do not impose any solution upon yourself in advance. The quality to develop in an actor is courage. — Yevgeny Vakhtangov

As it happens, Chicago is the nation's leader in municipal privatization efforts. That's right: The city that conservatives portray as the citadel of the power-grabbing, government-growing left has been selling itself off in pieces for years. It signed a 99-year lease for the Chicago Skyway, a toll road in the city's South Side, back in 2005. — Thomas Frank

Confidence is that internal alignment between what you know, what you believe and what you portray. — Todd Stocker

Progressives must not portray all abortions as tragedies ... Senator Hillary Clinton, in a 2005 speech commendable for setting forth a prochoice, pro-prevention, pro-family agenda, took the aspiration a step in the wrong direction when she called for policy changes so that abortion 'does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances. — Dawn Johnsen

When I stay focused and honest about who I am and the image that I hope to portray, then I won't find myself stranded in unfamiliar territory chasing money or popularity. If the work that you do is quality, then you'll be rewarded. It's also good to stretch musically within the realm of your ability, but not if it compromises your integrity. — Oleta Adams

Young guys don't tend to want to portray people who have frailties or are less than macho. — Samuel L. Jackson

As actors, we're always asked to portray and react to these extreme circumstances, otherwise it's not interesting. They are agonizing things to think about. — Kristin Scott Thomas

Big business increasingly likes to portray itself as socially concerned, adopting the style of civic action through 'campaigns' of varying degrees of cynicism. — Geoff Mulgan

The ability to portray people in still life and in motion requires the highest measure of intuition and talent. — Albert Einstein

Singing is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul, so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. — Amanda Seyfried

Growing up, sports was my outlet, my way to portray a personality. I was very shy around people but, through sports, something I was good at, I was able to make friends. — Curtis Joseph

I couldn't portray a woman in all her natural loveliness ... I haven't the skill. No one has. I must, therefore, create a new sort of beauty ... — Georges Braque

If you are curious as to what your future may hold, you can look into a mirror. What is reflecting back? Does a sparkle in your eyes indicate excitement about new adventures and opportunities? Does a smile on your lips portray an inner happiness and abundant goodwill towards others? — John Templeton

Don't do things or act out your posture and gestures to impress people, just be yourself and portray the confident 'you' with that high self-esteem. So relax because you are 'you'. Be sincere, be authentic. That will be impressive enough. — Archibald Marwizi

I think every time there's a show like 'Modern Family' or 'Will & Grace' that portray gay and lesbian characters and is successful, it just further opens the door. — Steven Levitan

The war on drugs was never meant to be won. Instead, it will be prolonged as long as possible in order to allow various intelligence operations to wring the last few hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits from the global drug scam; then defeat will have to be declared. "Defeat" will mean, as it did in the case of the Vietnam War, that the media will correctly portray the true dimensions of the situation and the real players, and that public revulsion at the culpability, stupidity and venality of the Establishment's role will force a policy review. — Terence McKenna