Characters Quotes

"People ask me to record their answering machines all the time. I love it. It's a miracle to me that people want to hear back those characters"

Mike Myers, Comedian

"I have very happy memories of fairy tales. My mother used to take me to the library in Toronto to check out the fairy tales. And she was an actress, so she used to act out for me the different characters in all these fairy tales"

Mike Myers, Comedian

"Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for another day's progress through the dazzling quicksand the marsh of blank paper"

John Updike, Novelist

"I created the characters from what I read in the script. I decided how I should talk, accent, no accent, my own voice, or a created voice. Then, I visualize what I should look like"

Ruth Buzzi, Actress

"I find it very hard to sit down and create an idea or especially a new character on command. Usually my characters evolve by accident out of some story context"

John Kricfalusi, Artist

"It's certainly more interesting for me as an actor, but I think it's also more interesting for the audience to see three-dimensional characters, rather than just a bad guy or a good guy"

Nicholas Lea, Actor

"I can move my characters through it easily, because I understand the background; I've really studied it"

Jean M. Auel, Writer

"I'd like to play characters who are older - I don't want to be playing 14-year-olds too much longer"

Alison Lohman, Actress

"Somebody like Mailer brings to that role everything that he stands for. The types of characters that I gravitate towards, the types of icons, tend to have a heavy physicality in that way"

Matthew Barney, Artist

"I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off"

Donald E. Westlake, Writer

"The characters do have a life of their own; it's weird"

Julie Walters, Actress

"You have to find something there that relates to the characters and reality on some level"

Victor Garber, Actor

"Yeah, I've always been accused of having a sense of mischief and I'm very flattered that you say you can see it in the roles I play, because I think that's important, even if I do play intense characters, like especially Christine Cagney"

Sharon Gless, Actress

"You can fake your age or mask it, but the passion that moves the characters has to be real"

Victoria Abril, Actress

"The man I lived with is a Christian, so I would talk to him about it. What would this person do in the Bible? What's the story around this person? Generally, when people talk about characters in the Bible, there's one thing they're known for, like Job"

Lucinda Williams, Musician

"When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture"

Robert Morgan, Soldier

"But so long as we can keep this crew of fantastic people together and can continue to make real breakthrough films in this category, as well as characters that stay true to what we've done in this first film, I'd be more than happy to be a part of it"

Brandon Routh, Actor

"I think the thing is with a movie that has this much science fiction in it; you need characters who are more science fact, if you know what I mean, than they are human"

Joe Morton, Actor

"Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places"

Robert Morgan, Soldier

"Casting ethnic characters is a very hard thing to do, but it's important. It's also interesting"

Darren Aronofsky, Director

"I'm very excited to see where the characters and their relationships go. But in the end, it really boils down to the people who have more power than me, who control the money"

Brandon Routh, Actor

"And I've been acting for 39 years, so I define characters differently than I did in say Miami Vice"

Edward James Olmos, Actor

"I love working with male actors, and I think there's a tendency to write really interesting characters that would work solely alongside men where they would be in a man's world and have to deal with that, and it creates a lot of interesting storylines. For me, it's kind of circumstantial, but I definitely enjoy it"

Elizabeth Moss, Actress

"All people are paradoxical. No one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity. It's fun, and it's fun because it's hard"

Edward Norton, Actor

"The heart and soul of network programming is series programming, the weekly repetition of characters you like having in your house"

Dick Wolf, Producer

"I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around"

Ann Beattie, Writer

"In my books, I never portray violence as a reasonable solution to a problem. If the lead characters in the story are driven to it, it's at the extreme end of their experience"

Dean Koontz, Author

"My comedy does not come from a place of deep cynicism, and I tend to play characters who are naive in some way"

Anna Faris, Actress

"I'm so into playing different characters, even when I was on Nickelodeon. I just observe"

Nick Cannon, Musician

"M*A*S*H offered real characters and everybody identified with them because they had such soul. The humor was intelligent and it always assumed that you had an intellect"

Loretta Swit, Actress

"A lot of my work has to do with not allowing my characters to have an ego in a way that the stomach doesn't have an ego when it's wanting to throw up. It just does it"

Matthew Barney, Artist

"Living gives you a better understanding of life. I would hope that my characters have become deeper and more rounded personalities. Wider travels have given me considerably greater insight into how cultural differences affect not only people, but politics and art"

Alan Dean Foster, Author

"I enjoy listening to classical music and heavy metal. I play basketball and try to go diving at least once a year. I don't really have hobbies in the traditional sense... I engage in too many activities already through the actions of my characters"

Alan Dean Foster, Author

"My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people"

Laurell K. Hamilton, Writer

"Supporting characters add depth to a story, and great actors leave their imprint with the audience"

Nicholas Lea, Actor

"What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is"

Jonathan Miller, Entertainer

"My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible"

Tahar Ben Jelloun, Poet

"I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story"

John Irving, Novelist

"Besides the mistakes that are pointed out, I love the way readers become involved with the characters. When readers start asking about character motivations instead of concentrating on the special effects, it means you're connecting with them on a personal level"

Alan Dean Foster, Author

"Normally, we see characters that have God complexes. How interesting, I thought, it would be to capitalize on that. And say, OK, well fine, you have a God complex, well this person has a Satan complex. And the doctor chooses to treat him scientifically"

Eriq La Salle, Actor

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