Characters Quotes (page 30)
what I want you to be - I don't mean physically but morally: you are very well physically - is a firm fellow, a fine firm fellow, with a will of your own, with resolution. with determination. with strength of character that is not to be influenced except on good reason by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's what your father, & your mother might both have been
Charles Dickens
you only learn when you give your whole being to something. When you give your whole being to mathematics, you learn; but when you are in a state of contradiction, when you do not want to learn but are forced to learn, then it becomes merely a process of accumulation. To learn is like reading a novel with innumerable characters; it requires your full attention, not contradictory attention.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes... in a total misapprehension of character at some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why, or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.
Jane Austen
For all the ugly vices that capitalism encourages, it's at least interesting, exciting, it offers possiblities. In America, the struggle is at least an individual struggle. And if the individual has strength enough of character, salt enough of wit, the alternatives are thicker than polyesters in a car salesman's closet. In a socialistic system, you're no better or no worse than anybody else.'But that's equality!'Bullshit. Unromantic, unattractive bullshit. Equality is not in regarding...
Tom Robbins
Directors are always changing things at the last minute. Actors will do a scene, and the director will say, ‘Okay, that was perfect, but this time, Bob, instead of saying “What’s for dinner?” you say, “Wait a minute! Benzene is actually a hydrocarbon!” And say it with a Norwegian accent. Also, we think maybe your character should have no arms.
Dave Barry
The most serious point in the case is the disposition of the child."What on earth has that to do with it?" I ejaculated. My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining insight as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.
Arthur Conan Doyle
There has been no single influence which has done more to prevent man from finding God and rebuilding his character, has done more to lower the moral tone of society than the denial of personal guilt. This repudiation of man’s personal responsibility for his action is falsely justified in two ways: by assuming that man is only an animal and by giving a sense of guilt the tag “morbid.
Fulton J. Sheen
This story ["The Depressed Person"] was the most painful thing I ever wrote. It's about narcissism, which is a part of depression. The character has traits of myself. I really lost friends while writing on that story, I became ugly and unhappy and just yelled at people. The cruel thing with depression is that it's such a self-centered illness - Dostoevsky shows that pretty good in his "Notes from Underground". The depression is painful, you're sapped/consumed by yourself; the worse the...
David Foster Wallace